Cursed
by Chronic Potterphile
Summary: Hugo comes back from America with a mysterious illness that could take his life, and there seems to be no cure. After much research, Rose finds out that there are only two people who probably know how to help her brother: Sam and Dean Winchester. (Destiel, ScoRose, time travel, set late season 4 onwards. Contains slash. Follows 'His Hero' and 'I Know Why You Smile canon).
1. Prologue

**DISCLAIMER: **I think, from all my previous stories, everybody would have come to the obvious conclusion that I do not own Harry Potter. It's too awesome to have been the brain child of someone like me, and it belongs to Queen Rowling.

And, it may not surprise you to know that I do not own Supernatural either (CW, Eric Kripke — you know these people are the ones who own it).

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**Author's Notes:**

Hello, everyone! *waves*

This is going to be one long A/N. Sorry, just a lot to explain!

**_About the SPN portion:_**So, I'm new to SPN. Not just the writing. The watching too. I started in March, and this thing has controlled my life ever since. I'm not even kidding. And while I was watching season 2, I had this plot bunny. So please be kind when it comes to the boys!

**_About the HP part:_** This story follows the canon of my stories — Little Angel Wings (chaptered Ronmione), His Hero (one-shot ScoRose) and I Know Why You Smile (chaptered Rose/Scorpius/Victoire triangle). You don't have to have read any of those stories to understand this because it's all explained. But if you are planning to read those, now would be a great time to check them out.

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Special thanks go to my lovely beta — **Expecto-Prongs**, and to the very lovely, amazing, fantastic **Nadia/lairyfight**, who doesn't even watch SPN, but is patient enough to read what I write. :)

_This fic is warned for sexual situations, substance (alcohol) abuse, violence and strong profanity. And though this isn't a warning, the story will contain slash too. _

That said, I hope you enjoy this! Please don't forget to review! And you will see the boys chapter 3 onwards. Thank you!

**Timelines: **

**HP- Next-gen**

**SPN- Late season 4 and mid-late season 5**

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**This fic is dedicated to my little brothers, S and R. I love them both, and would do anything for them. Even sell my soul.**

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**Prologue **

**_Amnesiac_**

**_2029_**

He is uncomfortable. There are beads of sweat forming on his forehead. A surreal aura surrounds him, enveloping his body. He feels no pain, yet, he knows there should be excruciating pain. He can hear everything around him, and some of the voices belong to the people he loves.

_"Hugo, Hugo!"_

Hugo really wants to open his eyes. He recognises each voice. The discomfort reaches a new level. His chest hurts… he can't breathe…

_"Okay, we have a code! Where's my wand…? Get Healer Boot! Quick!"_

He knows what a code is. Who is crashing? Hugo is a Healer, and he should really help.

Incantations. A pair of hands on Hugo's chest, pumping against his heart. But if Hugo knows what's going on, his heart is obviously fine. So why are they doing that? Why is someone administering CPR on him?

_"Sinus rhythm. He's stable."_

Sighs of relief. A sob. Hugo can recognise his mother's sobs from a mile away. He's heard them far too many times. Wait a minute. Does that mean that it was he, Hugo, who had an emergency just now? That was impossible! He feels fine! He can't open his eyes… but he feels fine!

_"His tests have been so good. He owled them to me all the while that he was in America. What went wrong?" _

That is Rose's voice. She sounds tearful. _Don't stress, Rosie, it's not good for you._

_"We don't know what's wrong."_

_"It's not the bloody cancer again, is it?"_

Hugo's father. The panic, the quiver in his voice. The anger. Hugo can hear it all. He has always been close to his father, after all. 'Dada', was what he had called his father as a child. Rose had always made fun of Hugo for it.

_"We don't know what it is, Ron."_

Healer Terry Boot. He used to be in Hugo's parents' year. He fought the war. His daughter had divorced Rose's ex-boyfriend, Scorpius, a couple of years ago. Hugo can recognise his voice anywhere, too. Uncle Terry has been his Healer since Hugo was two.

_"Well then, find out!"_

Hugo's father is probably going to bust a vein at this rate.

_"It could be a complication…"_

_"What, NOW? After all these years?"_

_"These things are highly unpredictable."_

There is silence. Silence. Finally. Hugo feels the need to open his eyes. He needs everyone to know he's okay. However, his eyelids are sealed. What the hell? Hugo hears Uncle Terry sigh, and a pair of footsteps recede. He's alone with his family. Good.

_"Hugo?"_ It's Hugo's mother. He feels a hand on his forehead. _"Hugo, baby?"_

She hasn't called him that since he was actually a child. She must be really scared.

_"It will all be f-fine, baby. You will be o-okay."_

_"Hermione…"_

_"Ron, I can't go through this again. I really can't."_

Go through what again?

_"He'll be fine, Hermione. Terry has said that it's most probably not the cancer again."_

Cancer? Hugo vaguely recollects that he's supposed to know something about the cancer… the cancer…

_"If it is, Ron…"_

_"Hugo will be fine."_

Who is Ron? The name rings a bell… He had heard it just now, and remembered who it was. But Hugo suddenly can't remember who Ron is. He feels that he should. It seems important. Ron is probably an important person.

Rose sniffles. _"He'd said he would come and meet me immediately."_

There is silence again. _"Go home, Rosie,"_ says another woman. Hugo knows that he had just heard her talking to 'Ron', but just like he can't remember who Ron is, he can't place this woman. But he knows she is as important as Ron.

_"I want to be with Hugo."_

_"Sweetie, he'll be fine. We'll call you as soon as he wakes up, okay?"_

That's enough, Hugo realises. He really needs to wake up now. For real. Otherwise, Rose won't leave, and she'll be in a bad state later on. Hugo needs to wake up for his sister. But he feels weak. Too weak.

_"Hermione, take Rosie and go home. I'll stay here with Hugo."_

_"No, Dad! I'm staying too,"_ insists Rose.

_"Rosie, it's not good to be stubborn, okay?"_

Hugo finally has the strength he needs. Gathering it all, he opens his eyes to a slightly blurry world.

"Hugo!"

Three voices call out his name at once — a red haired man, a bushy-haired woman, and Rose. Are they Ron and Hermione? Where are Hugo's parents? Hugo takes a deep breath. _I'm okay, _he says_. Can you call my parents, please?_ Where is he again? A hospital? Why?

Hermione is frowning. "How are you feeling, baby?"

_I'm fine. But why do you call me 'baby?'_

"Hugo?"

_I'm fine, woman!_

Hermione turns to Ron. "Why won't he talk, Ron?"

_I AM talking!_ Hugo tells her. _Can't you hear me? Now call my parents!_

No, wait, is he thinking this, or saying this?

He looks to his side, and there's a young, curly haired woman. He's sure he recognised her a moment ago too, but his memory fails him. Who is she? The young woman smiles at him, her swollen belly as evident as the glow of pregnancy on her face. She touches her baby bump and smiles. "That's your nephew… or niece."

He has a family? He has a sister? How can't he remember any of it?

His sister frowns. "Dad, something is wrong. Call Uncle Terry, will you?" Oh, Ron is Hugo's father. Right. No wonder Hugo was worried about not being able to remember him. So… is Hermione his mother? Who is Uncle Terry?

"Yeah, in a minute."

Hugo's father exits the room and his mother sits on the bed beside him. Hugo can't understand why he can't speak, or remember anything much. And… he feels like he's been in hospitals a lot, but he doesn't remember why. Does he work there? Does he get ill a lot?

"He's not able to speak?" says a voice, as a man in lime-green robes approaches Hugo. "I'll see what's wrong."

_It's not just that,_ Hugo tells him, but of course, it doesn't get across. He hates this. He's trapped. Hugo wants to be free. He doesn't want to be like this.

The robed man is quick with the examination. He holds Hugo's right wrist. "Lift your arm for me, Hugo. Come on."

Hugo tries. Nothing happens. The man tries the right leg as well, but Hugo can't move it either. The Healer then places his hand on Hugo's left wrist. "Lift it."

Hugo manages to lift his arm. The other man takes off the hand, and Hugo can do it again. His left leg seems fine too. The Healer turns to Hugo's sister. "He's had seizures, hasn't he, Rose?" Oh, so Hugo's sister's name is Rose. He should remember that.

"Yes," says Rose.

The Healer looks grim. "Anything else? Nausea? Weakness on his right side? Dizziness?"

"I don't know," replies Rose. "He wasn't even home until a few hours ago. What is it, Uncle Terry?" she asks him. "Is he going to be all right?"

"We need to get some tests done…" 'Uncle Terry' replies.

"But what is it?"

The Healer sighs. "Hugo…" he begins, hesitates, and then faces Hugo's family, looking sad. "Hugo's had a stroke. It seems like a long term complication of his leukaemia." He faces Hugo's parents. "Ron, Hermione, I'm really sorry…"

Leukaemia… complication… Ron… Hermione… Rose… Hugo knows these things, but he can't remember how. He's very uncomfortable now. He needs to shut his eyes.

"Hugo? Hugo!"

_Who is Hugo?_ He wonders, before he loses consciousness again.


	2. The Return

**A/N:** Many thanks to Expecto-Prongs for being a wonderful beta!

Anyway — time to get on with the chapter. Virtual cookies to the people who have favourited/followed the story. Reviews are love too! They make me extremely happy. :) So please review! I will respond, and even a word will make my day. :)

Oh, and one of my brothers, S, just got an amazing 91% in his exams, and I'm very, very proud of the kid. More cookies to everyone from a very happy sister! :D

This chapter contains strong profanity, and spoilers for the other stories whose canon it follows. If you are planning to read the others, please do so before scrolling below.

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**1. The Return**

**_Twenty-four hours ago_**

**_Springfield Wizarding Hospital _**

**_Springfield, Illinois_**

"I can't believe you're leaving for England _today_, Hugo."

Hugo Weasley looked up from his patient and at the source of the voice. He gave Kathy Miller a sad smile. "Well, this _is_ the last day of my internship."

Hugo was twenty-one years old, and was completing his internship in Healing. A part of it included going abroad to intern in a wizarding hospital, and Hugo had chosen Springfield Wizarding Hospital on a whim. Of course, SWH was amongst the best too, and as his internship came to a close that very day, Hugo was pleased to have learned a lot.

"But you could stay a few days!" Kathy said sadly.

"I wish, but I really want to go home," Hugo told her. "My sister is pregnant, and I haven't been to visit her ever since she broke the news, because I've been here all this time. And Mum and Dad… you know, they get really restless if I stay away more than necessary."

"They should really let you be."

"They've always been quite over-protective when it comes to me," shrugged Hugo. "Guess it was the cancer when I was two. Rose says that they really had a tough time with it. And I think that's what prompted both me and Rose to take up Healing as careers."

"Well, who doesn't have a bad time with cancer?" Kathy agreed. "Your parents are right to want you back as soon as possible, but I still wish you could stay longer." She gestured to the patient before them. "What happened to him?"

"Stroke," Hugo replied. "Haemorrhagic in origin."

"The poor guy. There are quite a few stroke patients around here, aren't there?"

"I've noticed," said Hugo. "It's unfortunate."

There was silence for a while, but Kathy broke it. "I need you to teach me something before you leave," she said, gesturing to the examination room.

"What?"

"Come on."

She pulled him by the wrist to the examination room, and Hugo wondered what she wanted to learn from him on his last day there. Kathy was still a Trainee, and she mingled with Hugo and his colleagues sometimes, eager to learn more than what she was intended to. Hugo enjoyed helping her out.

At present, as they reached the examination room, Kathy gestured to a tray of instruments. "Muggle instruments. I can't get them."

"Really?" Hugo asked, looking at the tray, which had catheters, needles and blades on it. "It's quite easy."

"Why do they hurt ill people, though?" Kathy asked, picking up a scalpel and giving it to him. "Tell me about scalpels."

"Muggle medicine saved my life," Hugo shrugged. "I don't think I'm in a position to question it." He fiddled with the scalpel in his hand, brushing the blade against his skin and remembering how his mother had told him that Healers, at one point, had worked without needles or incisions, until they discovered that some procedures were best handled the Muggle way. Nowadays, it was compulsory for every Healer to learn a few Muggle techniques, including how to use scalpels and needles.

"If you say so," said Kathy. "Bet it hurt, though."

"I don't remember much," said Hugo. "I was two. I just vaguely remember Mum crying and Rose being extremely mean…"

"Oh, you poor dear."

"Rose did turn into the best sister once she began to understand what was going on, though," said Hugo. "But getting back to the scalpel," he held it up to her. "What do you want to know?"

"Holding methods."

"Sure, there's pen, dinner fork, fiddle bow and grasping…"

**~o~**

Hugo was tired when he reached home that evening after his shift at the hospital, and a final lunch with his American friends. He could feel the excitement rise up at the prospect of going back to England and seeing his family again as he packed his trunk hurriedly and put the International Portkey on his desk. He had collected it from the American Ministry the previous day.

Once he had finished packing, he realised that he had an hour to go before the Portkey could transport him. Still very tired and sleepy, he stretched. He was starting to feel feverish, and some rest would be welcome, he realised. Setting an alarm, for forty-five minutes later, Hugo dropped onto his bed, and fell asleep as soon as his head had hit the pillows.

He woke up with a start after what seemed like a minute, but realising he had fifteen minutes to spare before he had to leave. He washed his face and stowed his alarm clock into his bag. But as he grasped the Portkey a few minutes later, a terrible wave of dizziness hit him.

Before he could react to this, the Portkey glowed blue, and he was being transported home. He landed at the living room of his flat and shoving the luggage aside, he rushed to the sofa to sit down and let the dizziness pass. However, it didn't stop there. All of a sudden, Hugo felt bile rise up in his throat and even as he just made it to the kitchen sink to throw up, fear shot up his body fibres. He wiped his mouth, holding on to the edges of the sink as his knees gave away. Panic began to take over every cell in his body. Something was wrong. Something was wrong…

Sweat broke on his forehead and everything started to spin. He had had all his usual tests just last month, and none of them indicated any impending long-term complications from his childhood leukaemia. What was wrong then? What was happening?

He needed to contact Rose… or his parents… immediately. Something was definitely not right…

Rose had said she'd drop by when he came back… Hugo rushed to grab the Floo Powder in a last, desperate attempt to contact his sister, but before he could get out of the kitchen, the world around him went black.

**~o~**

**_Meanwhile,_**

**_St Mungo's Hospital for Magical Maladies and Injuries_**

**_England_**

"I said _no_, Scorpius. I can take care of myself. And you're the last person I need anyway."

"Come on, Rose," said Scorpius, as Rose walked ahead of him, refusing to look at his face. _"I'm sorry!"_

"I heard you the last gazillion times," said Rose. "And I think I have a right to be angry with you."

"Are you going to penalise me for that ridiculous point in my life—?"

"Where you accused me of cheating on you with Teddy, and slept with my cousin? I think I am!"

"I was wrong. I have apologised so many times."

Rose stopped abruptly and turned to Scorpius. "You're a selfish bastard, you know that?"

He sighed. "Rose…"

"You are!" she said. "You only want me to forgive you, so you can be a part of our child's future!"

He raised an eyebrow. "And… that's a selfish thing?"

"Have you ever thought of what _I_ went through?" Rose asked him, putting her hands on her hips. "I _loved_ you, Scorpius."

"I loved you too," he said, his grey eyes sad. "If you'd taken a minute to sort out the problems we were having—"

_"Don't you dare!"_ Rose said to him. "I tried, okay? After you walked out, I came to talk to you, and you just brushed me away so rudely—"

"I thought you were cheating on me!"

"That's exactly what I wasn't doing, and what I wanted to talk to you about!" Rose said angrily, balling her fists. "And I came back, even after that, like a fool, to find that you were fucking Vic!" She paused. "So yes, I have every right on this planet to be pissed at you, okay? Don't you question me about that!"

"Rose, please listen to me—"

"No, Scorpius," she replied, baring her teeth at him. "I'm bloody tired of _listening_ to everyone. I try to do good things, and nothing comes out of it. I end up being the one to get stuck in rubbish like this. If I hadn't listened to your drunken ramblings about wanting to be with me, and not empathised with you, you'd just be another patient, and I'd have my sanity. I wouldn't be waddling about the place two years later, pregnant with your child. But it happened, and I can't do anything about it. So now, I am going to do as I please. I don't want you to be a part of our child's life."

Scorpius sighed. "Will you calm down?"

"No."

"It's not good for you to get angry—"

"And if you know what's good for _you_, you're about to sod off _right now_." Rose turned around, but Scorpius caught her wrist.

"Let me have my say, Rose."

She turned around, tears threatening to fill her eyes. She hated that she had loved Scorpius — that she still loved him, and that she was in this situation. She hated that he had hurt her so badly. He was the one person she had trusted never to hurt her intentionally, but in those weeks a few months ago, he had hurt her more than everyone else put together.

"Please let me go," she whispered, her lips quivering. "Please. I just want to go home, Scorpius. My brother is coming back—"

"Listen," he said calmly, nodding at her. "I know I was a dick, okay?"

"You think?" Rose said shakily, her vision blurring slightly with the tears. She blinked them back.

"You deserve to be cross with me. But hear me out."

Rose took a deep breath. "Fine. What do you have to say? That after Amber—"

He let go of her wrist before she could complete her sentence, sadness clouding over his grey eyes, at the name of his dead daughter. "Please don't deliberately hurt me."

"Why?" she sneered. "Isn't that what _you_ did?"

He narrowed his eyes. "Fine."

"Fine," Rose spat back at him.

"If you're not going to listen—"

"I just stopped to _listen_, Scorpius," Rose told him exasperatedly.

He sighed. "Look, I'm tired of you trying to get your revenge, okay? You know more than anyone else, what I went through when Amber died. If you're going to get her into the equation just for a bit of revenge—"

"Do you seriously think I have enough time and energy to plan revenge like this?" Rose asked him. She paused. "The Amber thing was unintentional, and quite uncalled for. Sorry about that. I really didn't mean to upset you. I just wanted to tell you that I'm not buying your excuses, Scorpius."

"But I'm not making an excuse!" Scorpius replied, "I was wrong! I am openly accepting that. I love you, and I shouldn't have hurt you. I was an arse. A dick. And right now… I…" he hesitated. "I don't just want to be in our child's life. I want to be in your life too."

"Really?" said Rose.

He looked bewildered at his reaction. "Um… yeah."

"No."

"Why?"

"Because I don't have to give you a reason, that's why," she said, biting her lip. "You never listened to me, Scorpius. I wanted you to hear me out so desperately. Now… I don't care anymore. You're no longer part of my thoughts, or my life."

Rose walked away from the man, the tear finally falling out of her eye. Wiping it away, she headed to her office, trying not to think about Scorpius and diverting her attention to her brother instead. Hugo hadn't Flooed or owled her. He must have been tired, she reckoned. He wouldn't forget otherwise.

Deciding to pay her brother a visit herself, Rose exited the hospital. She tried not to think about Scorpius as she walked a small stretch to take a bus — Apparition and Floo travel were not recommended during pregnancy, but the Muggles could be a boon with some of their inventions.

She was excited to see her brother again after such a long time. She was very close to him, after being a terrible sister when they were toddlers. Rose didn't remember all of the time that her brother had been sick with leukaemia, but she did have a few vague memories, including some of her deliberately going and waking Hugo up while he slept in his cot after a long day of chemotherapy. She also recollected some other things — some arguments between her parents; her mother's tears… it was all vague, but it was there. These were the reasons that prompted Rose to take Psychiatric Healing. The mental imbalance that Hugo's illness had brought to her family, though vague to remember, still made for terrifying memories.

The bus dropped Rose off at a spot not far away from Hugo's apartment building. She got off and headed happily to his flat. He'd definitely ask her if he was about to have a nephew or a niece, but Rose had decided that she wanted to know when she saw the baby. That would be far more exciting.

She reached his flat and rang the doorbell, grinning at the prospect of getting to see her brother in under a minute. However, even after five minutes, there was no answer.

"Hugo?"

Rose rang the doorbell again, but there was no reply. Frowning, she pulled out her wand and pointed it at the door. _"Alohomora."_

The door swung open and Rose entered the flat slowly. Hugo's things were in the living room, but he was nowhere to be seen.

"Hugo?" she called out again. "Are you trying to scare me? Don't do that, please, I'm pretty pregnant!"

But of course, he wouldn't do that. Hugo wasn't the type to prank Rose. She had been the troublesome, manipulative one all her life. Where was her brother?

Rose proceeded to the kitchen, when she saw it. "HUGO!"

Her brother was on the floor, his eyes shut, his body twisted, and the most horrific convulsions wracking his large form.


	3. Digging In

**A/N:** Hello, all! Here's chapter 2! Sorry for the long wait — my beta was busy, and I like having my stuff beta'd, so I can avoid mistakes. Anyway, this chapter is longer, and as I go on from here, chapters will be on the longer side. My plot for this story is coming up to 26 chapters, but really, that's a very rough estimate. So make that plus or minus four chapters, which makes the story 22-30 chapters long. Word count-wise, I've written about 25k words up to chapter 6, and can confidently say that this story will exceed 50k words.

So yes, the writing is done up to more than half of chapter 7, and I will update as and when my beta is able to take out time for this. The story should move faster starting now, and you will meet the boys in the next chapter, as promised.

That said, please, please let me know what you think! I have almost no feedback, and I love writing this so much, and just a word or two from you guys out there will be so lovely. If there's anything you would like to suggest or ask, please go ahead. And no flaming, please. Sam and Dean would hate that.

All medical information is from Davidson's textbook of medicine, Wikipedia, and the notes I take down during class (I got a stroke patient for my exam last month, heh.)

Many thanks to Expecto-Prongs for the wonderful beta that she is! :)

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**2. Digging In**

"Rose."

Rose opened her eyes with a start, to see Albus standing over her with flowers in his hand. She had fought with her parents and stayed back at the hospital, watching Hugo's unconscious form until she had fallen into a light slumber. She yawned. "Hey, Al."

He took one look at her eyes, and gasped. "Oh, shite, I didn't realise you were sleeping! Sorry!"

"No, no," said Rose, patting at the armrest. "Have a seat."

He placed the flowers in a vase on Hugo's bedside cabinet, sat down and bent over to peck Rose's forehead. "How are you?"

"Fine," Rose smiled. "Thanks. Where are the others?"

"Mum and Dad are the tea room with your parents and James and Lily left for work," Albus explained to her. "They already saw Hugo. I decided to stay back with you."

"Thanks, Al," Rose murmured, leaning into her cousin's shoulder. Albus was her best friend. She told him everything, and he had always been by her side, just as she had stood by him at all times. Albus, like Hugo, had been a subject of Rose's torture when they had been children, but after Hugo's illness, she and Albus had grown close too. Soon, she and Albus were a team against James.

Albus put an arm around her. "I'm sorry about Hugo, Rosie."

She nodded. "I wish there was a way to help him, Al…"

"The Healers are doing just that."

"They have no idea what the heck is going on."

"What?!"

"Yeah. Hugo's down with something really strange. No-one is able to figure out what it is."

There was silence. "Seriously?" Albus asked Rose, breaking it. "No clue?"

"No," said Rose, a lump forming in her throat. "They're just assuming things. They _reckon_ it could be this or that… but no one knows."

"What… what is the diagnosis?"

"Stroke," sighed Rose.

Albus's eyes widened. "I thought that happened to old people?"

"Not necessarily," Rose said. "And Hugo is prone to it… because of the leukaemia… but his tests don't indicate any of the factors responsible for a stroke."

Albus straightened and looked at her. "Like…?"

"Well," Rose began, wondering how to explain the situation to her cousin in non-Healer language. Albus worked for the Magical Law Enforcement Patrol at the Ministry. "Um… well, you know what haemorrhages are, right?"

"Yup."

"They could be a cause for the stroke — haemorrhages in the brain. They're the most likely cause, especially since Hugo's had seizures, and also because he's gone into cardiac arrest once."

"Okay."

"Other than that, it could be a thrombus — which is essentially like a blockage — in one of the major arteries."

"Er. Okay. Or?"

"An embolus."

"I'm not sure I want to know what that is."

Rose's lips curled into a smile. "It doesn't look like either a thrombus or an embolus. Other causes are venous thrombosis, which isn't the case, and hypoperfusion — which can happen from previous cardiac arrest and heart failure, but Hugo didn't have those before the stroke. His tests are clean too."

"So it's a uh… haemorrhage?" he asked her, confused.

She sighed. "That seems to be it. Thing is, tests don't show that either."

"So what's it?"

"Nothing," shrugged Rose.

"Nothing?!"

"Yep."

"But… Hugo just… had a stroke?"

"Yeah." Rose bit her lip. "I'm scared, Al. Something fishy is going on around here."

"What do you mean?" Albus asked her.

"I… I don't know," Rose replied to him, blinking back tears. "Hugo's… Hugo's _dying_."

"What?! The Healer says—"

"He'll die if they can't cure this… because whatever this is, also caused a cardiac arrest, when he's never had any heart condition," said Rose in a thick voice. "And the Healers can't cure it unless they have a cause for it. Even the potions they're giving to reduce his symptoms aren't working."

Albus looked at her for a moment, and sighed. "Nothing is going to happen to Hugo."

"I don't know…"

"Trust me. He'll be fine."

"How do you know?"

"I just do."

**~o~**

"He's going into cardiac arrest. Call Boot. Mr and Mrs Weasley, I need you to step out, please. You too, Rose."

"No…"

Rose watched her father hold her mother while they exited the room, as the Healers crowded around Hugo, waving their wands and speaking several incantations. _No. Not again._

"Rose, please leave. We'll call you back in."

"I'm a Healer," Rose insisted. Technically, there was nothing she could do here, but she wanted to be there for Hugo. The other Healer sighed and nodded at her as the rest of them continued to help Hugo.

"Okay," said one Healer, feeling Hugo's carotid pulse. "We need to start with the CPR."

Another Healer went forward and put one hand upon the other, pressing them on Hugo's chest and willing his heart to beat. "One – two – three – four – five…" He continued up to thirty, and shifted so that the ambu bag could be kept at Hugo's mouth. Two puffs.

"Again…"

Rose shut her eyes. What was happening to him? What went wrong?

"Another round…"

_Hang in there, Hugo, I swear I'll help you._

"Boot isn't here. Who's under him?"

"Malfoy."

"Ask him to get his arse in here, would you?"

Rose opened her eyes to see a Healer rush away in search of Scorpius. Oh, no. Why did he have to be the one under Uncle Terry?

"Sinus rhythm."

The words were like music to Rose's ears. She turned to her parents, who looked as relieved as Rose when they re-entered the room. And then Rose heard Scorpius. "What's going on in here?"

"Cardiac arrest," another Healer — Elmer replied, wiping the sweat that had blossomed over his lip due to the force of the compressions. "We had to administer CPR."

Scorpius turned to Rose and her parents, who had come in as soon as Hugo had been resuscitated. "If you could leave the room…"

"We're staying right here," Rose told him. "You can do whatever you want in front of us."

"_You_ can stay," Scorpius told her. "You're a Healer. Your parents have to leave, though."

"Malfoy—"

Rose's parents turned around, and Rose's mother ran a hand through her daughter's hair. "We'll sit outside, Rosie. It's all right."

Rose nodded at her mother's pale form, and dropped into the armchair she'd occupied the previous evening as the Healers left, and Scorpius bent over Hugo. He worked for some time, checking Hugo's reflexes, performing quick tests and trying to diagnose again.

"It's a stroke," Rose said to him.

"Yeah, I know," said Scorpius. "But the tests are clean."

"They are," Rose agreed.

"And he's had two cardiac arrests?"

Rose nodded grimly. Scorpius frowned and muttered a few more incantations, before putting aside the wand. He placed his hand on Hugo's forehead and started muttering more incantations as Rose cupped her chin and looked on. Something was wrong here, she reasoned. As far as she knew, strokes had nothing to do with the heart, unless it was because of a massive haemorrhage in the brain. Hugo had _no_ haemorrhage. No heart abnormality. Yet, he had suffered through _two_ cardiac arrests. There was something that wasn't medical about Hugo's condition. It was almost as if…

"Would you know if he's taken some potion lately? Accidentally swallowed a poison?" Scorpius asked her, saying her thoughts out loud.

"No," replied Rose. "I didn't get to speak to him. I found him seizing on his kitchen floor."

Her ex-lover paused. "This is most definitely a magically induced stroke. It's probably a potion or a hex. The cardiac arrests make even lesser sense than the stroke. And the odd thing is… I think Hugo is aware of his cardiac arrest episodes."

"That's not possible."

"I know, but it's true. And…" Scorpius rubbed his palms slowly, not taking his eyes off Hugo. "I don't understand why the potions aren't working on his paralysis. They always work. This is the first case I've seen…"

There was silence.

"So… so how do you cure this?" Rose asked Scorpius after a while.

He shrugged. "You have to find the cause. It's like any other medical condition."

Rose sighed. She'd have to do some digging in.

"Listen, Rose—"

Before Scorpius could speak to her, Rose had already got up from the chair and headed out of Hugo's room.

**~o~**

"Hey, Rose!"

"Hi, Lily!"

"Come on in."

Rose followed her cousin into the familiar house, her mind buzzing with what she had just found out from Scorpius. He was right about what he had said. Why hadn't she thought about it before?

"So, how's Hugo?" Lily asked gently.

"Still the same," Rose sighed. "I just… I wish…" she paused. "Is Al home?"

"He is."

"I need to talk to him for a while."

Lily was bewildered, but she got up and proceeded to call her brother. Rose wondered if she could talk to Lily about her suspicions, since the latter worked as an Auror, but something told her to confide in Albus first. As Rose pondered on about the possibilities of how exactly Hugo was in such a condition, Albus entered the room. "How are you, Rose?"

She gave him a sad smile as he sat next to her. "I need to talk to you in private."

Lily heard this, and quietly exited the room, as Albus faced Rose, his green eyes full of concern. There was silence. Rose bit her lip, wondering how to tell him. "Al?" she began.

"Hmm?"

"I need your help."

"With what?"

"With finding out what's wrong with Hugo. I need to know what's causing it."

Albus frowned at her. "I hardly know anything about Healing, Rosie. I'm a Magical Law person."

Rose pushed a strand of her hair behind her ear. "Thing is, I don't think — and Scorpius agrees — that this is entirely a medical problem. This is something else — possibly foul play. And I intend to find out."

Her cousin sighed. "Are you sure about this?"

"Yes."

"You shouldn't go about stressing yourself, you know."

"I know. This isn't stress, Al." She looked into Albus's green eyes. "Trust me, I'll feel much better when Hugo wakes up."

"I know you will."

Rose smiled at him, and made to get up from the couch, but he put a hand on her shoulder. "We'll start tomorrow."

"Why?"

"You've been through a lot today," Albus explained to her. "I think you should get some rest."

She bit her lip. "And if I rest now, you'll help me tomorrow?"

"I will," he promised.

**~o~**

"Those are a lot of cuts on his hand," Albus observed, as Rose scrutinised Hugo's right arm. She had decided that to find out what happened to her brother, she needed to start with Hugo himself. Anything abnormal on his body, or anything in his robes would help.

Rose opened her brother's large palm and looked at it with narrowed eyes. There were tiny cuts here and there around his fingers — he probably hadn't even noticed them. She waved her wand so that they healed themselves. "Scalpels," she muttered exasperatedly.

"What?"

"Well, Healers have to train in basic Muggle techniques," Rose said to her cousin. "Hugo must have handled a few scalpels, the clumsy fool." She smiled lovingly at her little brother. "I'll get him out of here, Al. And I'll pull his leg for not being able to use scalpels without cutting his himself. Just like the old times."

Albus nodded. "You will."

Rose continued examining her brother, looking for the markings of a hex or a curse, but she found nothing. Hugo was clean. She then stood up straight, but had to put her hands on her back to steady herself. Stumbling backwards a little and cursing Scorpius under her breath for her shifted centre of gravity, she turned to Albus. "Anything?"

"Nope," he said.

"Then we should check his flat."

Albus sighed. "Rosie… this is enough for a day, don't you think?"

"No," said Rose, balling her fists in determination. "We need to figure this out quickly, Al. If we just look around enough, we can help Hugo. I'm sure of it."

He ran his hand through his hair. "Fine."

Rose put her hand on his shoulder. "Would you give up if James were here instead?"

"No, of course not," said Albus, "And I'm not giving up on Hugo either. It's just that you should take it easy, you know." He patted her baby bump. "You're pretty far along right now."

"I may be six months pregnant, Al, but it's not like I'm going to deliver _now_. I'll live through the sleuthing around without going into labour."

Albus rolled his eyes. "Going back to 'mean Rosie' mode from twenty years ago, are we?"

"Do you want me to?" She asked him, grinning.

He mock pouted. _"Mummeeeee!"_

Rose sniggered as Albus broke into laughter. "That's all you and Hugo ever did."

"I didn't do that," Albus told her. "That was how Hugo reacted."

"Oh yeah," replied Rose. "You went running to Uncle Harry. Hugo was the one who ran to Mum."

"The poor fellow couldn't even run," said Albus. "He was so sick; he had to be carried around for about for a long time. And you, like a really mean sister—"

"Don't remind me of it, Al," said Rose, sitting on Hugo's bed. "I was terrible to him."

"You were just a kid. And you wanted your parents' attention, but Hugo took it all with his disease," Albus told her reasonably. "Most kids would be the same."

Rose sighed. "Yeah. But I'll make it up to him anyway." She stood up slowly. "Come on."

"Are you sure you want to do it now?" Albus asked her, his face concerned.

She nodded. "I want to get to the bottom of this as soon as possible."

"Okay, come on."

**~o~**

Albus stopped the car outside Hugo's apartment building and got out, rushing to the passenger side to help Rose out of the car. Once he had parked the car, they headed together to Hugo's flat.

Albus was as close to Rose as he was to Lily and James. In fact, sometimes, Rose and Hugo felt more like siblings than mere cousins. The five of them had grown up at each other's houses. Uncle Ron and Aunt Hermione's home was the same to Albus as his own home. He also vaguely remembered the days from Hugo's leukaemia. The Bubble-Head Charms, the sanitising incantations… sleeping in the guest room when his parents stayed over late, and sometimes, complete sleepovers…

"I found him here," said Rose, breaking Albus out of his reverie, pointing at a spot in the kitchen. Albus turned around to see Hugo's luggage still in the living room.

"I think we should have a look at his stuff. Maybe there's something in there?"

"Good idea," said Rose, waving her wand so that Hugo's trunk opened up.

In the meantime, Albus walked over to the kitchen sink. He scrunched his nose as he looked into it. "Gross."

"What?"

"Looks like Hugo spilled his guts when he got back," said Albus, letting the water in the sink run and standing back to face Rose. "So you may want to add that to your symptoms."

"Okay," said Rose. "And that also means he could have consumed some kind of poison."

"If you say so."

"Can you help me here?" asked Rose, pointing to Hugo's trunk. Albus immediately got there and knelt down, rummaging through Hugo's things. He pulled out Hugo's medical potions kit and handed it to Rose.

"See if you can find something there. The rest here is just his clothes and books."

"Remove the books," said Rose. "We might find a reason for it in those. Maybe there's an epidemic in America."

"Possible."

Albus removed Hugo's books from the trunk and stacked them on the sofa that Rose was sitting on. There was a sheaf of bound parchment with what seemed like Hugo's handwritten notes.

"Is there a diary in there?" Rose asked Albus, grinning.

Albus rolled his eyes at her. "And you're a psychiatrist."

"Hugo wouldn't stop irritating me about Scorpius ever since he and I started living together," shrugged Rose. "I'd just like to repay the favour."

"Yeah, I know," Albus told her, "But if Hugo was in a live-in, I think we'd know."

"That doesn't mean he doesn't have a girlfriend. Or a crush."

"That's totally up to you and Hugo," said Albus, turning back to the trunk. He paused. "Do you still talk to Malfoy?"

"He approaches me sometimes," said Rose, and Albus could almost see the effort that she took to keep the nonchalance in her voice. "Says he wants to be a part of our baby's life. I told him to fuck off."

"Is that what you really want?" Albus asked her.

"Yeah."

"Sure?"

"Shut up, Al, you sound like me with one of my patients."

Albus stood up from his place, dusted his hands on his jeans, and went over to sit on the sofa next to Rose. "From what you've told me, he did seem to genuinely love you."

"Maybe he did, but he doesn't anymore."

"Do you love him?"

"No."

Albus sighed. "You can't lie, you know."

"I know. That's why I'm being truthful here. Scorpius really hurt me, Al. How do I trust him not to be so immature again?"

"It wasn't immature of him," said Albus. As Rose opened her mouth to protest, he raised his hand. "Listen to me."

"But—"

"Rosie, will you hear what I have to say?"

"Fine."

Albus crossed his arms. "See. Scorpius suspected you of cheating on him, and he was hurt. You two broke up. So whatever that was with Vic — that was while he was on the rebound. He was just hurt, and both he and Vic chose the wrong way to get over you and Teddy. They didn't know how to handle their emotions. That happens to the best of us."

"Hardly."

Albus shook his head. "You're the psychiatrist. You should know that I'm right."

"Maybe," Rose said, "But it was wrong here."

"You're stubborn, aren't you?"

"I'm just being reasonable."

"As you say."

There was silence as Rose read through Hugo's sheaf of parchment. Albus drummed his fingers against the coffee table as he watched her read, wondering how to make her understand that she needed Malfoy back.

Rose had been a whole different person during her courtship with Malfoy. But after that went down the drain last year, Albus had seen his cousin change. She had struggled, been depressed (though not clinically) and subdued, and she had lost the spark that she'd had earlier. That, coupled with her pregnancy, only made her tired, and very snappish and rude on a lot of occasions.

"Al," said Rose suddenly, breaking through Albus's thoughts, as well as the silence. "You have to look at this." She thrust the parchment under his nose, and Albus started to read.

_"My patient was apparently all right five days ago. To begin with, he experienced dizziness…"_ he frowned up at Rose. "So Hugo wrote up a few cases…?"

"No, no, see," said Rose, turning over a few pages. "Read the diagnosis."

"MCA? And… er… left sided hemiplegia caused due to stroke of haemorrhagic origin?"

"And the symptoms are same as Hugo's," said Rose. "Convulsions, vomiting, dizziness that I'm sure Hugo had too. And episodes of cardiac arrest, which they all _survived_. The survival rates in case of cardiac arrests are not so high. And look at this." She showed Albus five or six more cases that Hugo had written down, and Albus was surprised to see similar symptoms and diagnoses in all of them.

"Do so many people suffer from the same type of stroke at the same time?"

"It's definitely too weird to be coincidence," said Rose. "We need to find out about this."

"How? I'm sorry, Rose, but you really shouldn't go to America."

"No," said Rose. "But you work for Magical Law Enforcement… wouldn't your office have records of suspicious things?"

"Not things like this, and definitely not if it's suspicious activity in _America_," said Albus.

"Is there anything else we can do to find out?"

"I can run a check on SWH," said Albus. "If this epidemic occurred among Muggles, they might have admitted some, and I'll get the records of that. And St Mungo's could have some information too. Let me see."

Rose nodded. "Thanks, Al."

"Hey," said Al, patting her shoulder. "You and Hugo are no different to me than James or Lily, and I'll do anything to help. Just promise you'll take care of yourself, okay?

"I will."

**~o~**

Rose walked up to Albus's office as swiftly as possible, her heart thumping with excitement. He had owled her that morning and told her that he had found out something about what had happened to Hugo. As soon as she had received the letter, Rose had left to visit her cousin.

It was five days since Hugo's admission into St Mungo's, and he wasn't getting any better. He was conscious, but partially paralysed. He couldn't speak, or even remember his family. It was unbearable for Rose to look at Hugo, or her parents in the conditions that they were in.

She found her way to Albus's cubicle, where he sat with a sheaf of parchment in front of him. When he saw her, he conjured up a chair for her to sit on, and picked up the first sheet of parchment. "I looked up everything I could find about wizard epidemics amongst Muggles, or vice-versa. There's nothing that coincides with what Hugo has."

"Then what did you find out?" Rose asked her cousin, bewildered.

"Well," replied Albus, "It turns out, SWH was shut down almost twenty years. It reopened just last year."

"Why?"

"There's no solid reason anywhere. The hospital records from 2009 show a high death rate due to strokes, though. It was shut down after two Muggles were spotted around the hospital. Twice."

"Muggles?" Rose repeated, bewildered.

"Yeah. Two of them. They're brothers. There is nothing as to how they caused the shutdown, but considering the details, I have a sneaky feeling that they're the ones we're looking for. They gave aliases, but the Ministry tracked down their real names — Dean and Sam Winchester."

* * *

**A/N:** That box below is hungry. I'll love you forever.


	4. The Two Muggles

**A/N:**

Hello! I'm back!

Yes, I know, this was quicker, wasn't it? :D It's all thanks to my wonderful beta — Expecto-Prongs. Cookies for her!

Anyway, here is the third chapter, and guess what? It's the boys! :D Well, I'm very, very nervous about these two — about the way I've written them, because this is my first time, really, and comments from you guys would be wonderful. As such, I should thank Jensen and Jared for their wonderful acting, because these characters are complex, and it's hard to write them, but without J2, we'd be lost, right?

St Luke's Episcopal, and all the hospitals mentioned, except for SWH are very real. Thank you, Jamie, for St Luke's.

Hope you enjoy this!

* * *

**3. The Two Muggles**

**_Late April, 2009_**

**_A few miles away from Springfield, Illinois_**

_"The righteous man who begins it, is the only one who can finish it."_

Dean Winchester steered the Impala absently through the highway, listening to Sam snore on the passenger side, and to Castiel's voice over and over in his head. The Metallica cassette that had been blaring on the cassette player had wound out hours ago, and silence had prevailed in the car. Sam had expressed his relief and surprise at the lack of music, and promptly dozed off a while later. Dean, however, hadn't noticed much of anything. He was just thinking of the things that Castiel, and then Zachariah had said to him.

The angels seemed to think that he, Dean, could stop the Apocalypse. Maybe even Lucifer. Dean didn't see how that could to happen. He would believe it if they said that Sam could do it. Maybe Sam actually could. But he, Dean, wasn't cut out for this. He was flawed, messed up, not powerful enough…

Nothing that Dean felt inside of him matched up to the guilt at having been the one to start breaking the Seals in the first place. Castiel had left the hospital room soon after having confirmed Alastair's words, and Dean had realised that if the angels lost, he, Dean would be the one to have jumpstarted the Apocalypse.

And with that, Dean realised that if he felt anything more, he would explode. He was tired of everything. He was tired of his brother's changed behaviour, and all the new secrets, of the angels and demons and their war, of Lucifer and the Apocalypse, and of everything. He wanted out. He really just wanted a normal hunter's life again. He knew he wasn't destined to a normal family life, but couldn't things go back to the way they were three or four years ago? Did it have to come to this?

Sam groaned and opened an eye beside Dean. The elder Winchester turned to the other man, grinning.

"Wakey wakey, Sammy!" Dean said in a cheerful voice that completely opposed his own mood. "I was waiting for you to wake up, so you could take the wheel."

Sam sat up properly and stretched his long arms. If he was bewildered at Dean voluntarily asking him to drive, he didn't say anything about it. Instead he croaked in a thick, sleepy voice, "Sure. Just pull over."

"Yeah, after we have a burger break. I'm starving. Aren't you?"

Sam checked his watch. "Right now?"

"Yeah, so?"

"Nothing."

Dean drove on until he found a decent looking diner and parked his car outside of it. "Get your notes along," he said to Sam as they got out of the car. "I want to run over this new case again."

Sam obliged, and they entered the diner. They ordered their things and Sam opened his laptop. "What do you want to know?"

"Everything," Dean replied.

"You weren't listening when I read it out the last time, were you?"

"Just read out the notes, Sam."

Sam glanced his laptop screen and opened his mouth to say something, but decided against it. "People in Springfield, Illinois suddenly seem to be getting a lot of strokes. Four deaths already."

"And how many have suffered the attacks?"

"I can't get hold of the information," said Sam. "They all seem to have been in the same hospital. But I can't find out anything about the hospital."

"Do you know the name?"

"No. We'll have to find out when we get there."

"Fantastic," said Dean, taking a sip of his beer. "What about the people who died — were they all old?"

"No," Sam replied. "All either young or middle-aged."

"So… this thing, it seems like the Ghost Sickness again." Dean reasoned, leaning forward. "Or like the spirit at that prison."

"I'd put my money on a spirit," said Sam. "Probably the vengeful spirit of a doctor who worked there."

"Any violent doctor deaths in the area, then?"

"None that I can find," said Sam. "The case is pretty weird."

"Maybe because the research isn't good enough," muttered Dean.

Sam frowned. "If you think _you_ could do it better—"

"No, let it be—"

Sam put down the laptop lid, his nostrils flaring. "You know what, Dean? I'm tired of your bad mood. Talking to you is like walking on freaking eggshells! Something happened that you won't talk to me about, but I'm supposed to understand your mood and try not to set you off."

"Yeah, that's exactly what you're supposed to do," snapped Dean.

Sam folded his arms across his chest and narrowed his eyes. _"Fine. _I won't care anymore, then."

"Good."

They ate in silence as their orders arrived, and when they got back into the Impala, Sam took the wheel. Dean put down the glass on the passenger side and placed his arm on the window ledge, shutting his eyes and enjoying the breeze. He hoped that this new case would take his mind away from what the angels had said. Maybe it was all just a bad dream. He wished it was. Hell, he secretly wished that everything about his life was just a really, really bad dream.

"Dean."

He turned to Sam, who glanced at him with concern in his eyes. "I'm fine, Sam," he sighed. "Just drive on, would you?"

"You're not _fine_."

"Okay, I'm not. But I really don't want to talk about it."

Sam set his eyes on the road, gripping the wheel tightly. "Whatever it is that you're hiding… I have a right to know."

"What gave you the idea?"

Sam shook his head. "Because I'm a part of it too. This war. This fight against Lilith."

"Yeah," said Dean. "But…" he sighed, "It's best that you don't know, Sammy."

"Maybe you should try me," shrugged Sam. "Like you told me about everything else — about what Dad said to you, about Hell… I'm not a kid anymore, Dean."

"I know that," said Dean, "But…" He sighed. He might as well talk to Sam about some of it. His brother did have a right to know, after all. "You know, when Uriel died?"

"Yeah."

"Well, while I was…" Dean hesitated, disgust rising in him at the thought, "… _torturing_ Alastair, he had said something to me."

"You know that demons lie."

"Yeah, I do. But Alastair — he said that I was the one who broke the first Seal when I was in Hell."

Dean could see Sam's eyebrows rising. "And Cas…?"

"He came to see me at the hospital when I woke up. And he says it's true," replied Dean. He paused. "And it doesn't end there, either. Apparently, the person who starts breaking the Seals is the only one who can stop them from breaking."

Sam took in a sharp breath. "So they think stopping Lilith is upon you."

"Yes." Dean almost told his brother how he didn't think he could do it, and how he didn't think he was strong enough, but he couldn't, for he didn't want Sam taking it up as his own responsibility. As such, Sam's demonic abilities were getting scarier and scarier — Dean had found out from Castiel as to how the younger Winchester had killed Alastair with his powers. Dean knew that he didn't want to give Sam an opportunity to use those powers.

"And what happened at Sandover?" Sam asked Dean.

"Zachariah paid me a visit," Dean said to him. "And confirmed that I was the one who was supposed to do it."

"By erasing our memories and making us work in some company?"

"Yeah."

"Weird!"

"Tell me about it."

Dean realised that Sam knew he was holding something back, but this was not to be revealed to Sam under any circumstance. He just let his brother drive on, not bothering to remove the confusion out of Sam's face by talking further.

There was silence. "Dean?" Sam spoke up again. Dean didn't answer him. Sam sighed. "You… you know that it isn't your fault, right?"

"Sure," Dean said half-heartedly.

"I'm serious, man," Sam replied to him. "There's nothing—"

"— that I could have done?" Dean asked his brother roughly. "Don't say that, Sammy, because _this _— this whole _thing_…"

"Come on, man," Sam cut across him. "You survived thirty years. I almost passed out from the pain when the ghouls attacked me at Windom the other day. And you? You were being _tortured_…" He paused, daring Dean to defy him, but when that didn't happen, he continued. "You did what you could, Dean," his voice broke slightly, and he cleared his throat.

Dean blinked. "Yeah, but you know what? Dad survived a hundred years in there — without breaking. What would you say to that?"

"Dad?"

"Yes. Dad." Dean replied to his brother. "He was put through the _same_ torture, and made the _same_ offer, but guess what, he didn't jumpstart the freaking _Apocalypse_," he said, almost growling out the last word. His throat constricted painfully, and he looked out of the window to avoid Sam's eyes. He didn't need sympathy. Hell, he didn't _deserve_ sympathy.

Sam let out a shaky breath. "It's still not your fault."

"You can keep saying that; doesn't make it true."

Dean's comment was met with a sudden lurch and a screeching of tyres, as Sam pulled the car to the side of the road. "Goddammit, Dean!" he said angrily, turning to his brother. "This isn't your fucking fault, okay? You're not solely responsible for everything that happens and—"

"I'm sleepy," Dean announced, ignoring his brother and leaning back on the seat with his eyes shut. Sam's jaw clenched with held back emotion as he pounded a fist on the steering wheel.

"You do anything to my baby, and I'll end you," Dean muttered, opening an eye.

"Fine," Sam said, pulling off the shoulder and beginning to drive again. "Your choice. You don't want me to help, I'm giving up."

"This is exactly what I need," Dean muttered again, the lump in his throat painful. He could feel Sam's eyes drifting between him and the road for the next hour, before sleep finally overtook his senses.

**~o~**

Dean had fallen deep asleep when Sam drove into Springfield. He steered the car around for a while, looking for a motel, and when he found a decent one, he parked the Impala outside of it. He turned to his brother's still form. Dean seemed to have aged several years in the time that he had spent in Hell. He was tired and not as strong as he had always been. He had lost his spark. And after what he had just revealed to Sam about their father…

Sam knew the kind of guilt that Dean was capable of feeling, and he wished he could somehow infuse into his brother's brain that breaking the first Seal wasn't Dean's fault. He wondered why Dean wouldn't just let him help. True, it wasn't pleasant — none of it was; not the demon blood, not the powers that came out of it — but at least it meant that he, Sam could take some of the burden off Dean's shoulders. But Dean wouldn't let him. He would just boss Sam around and treat him like a freak. Plus, he was hiding something else from Sam. Zachariah obviously hadn't gone through all that trouble of erasing Dean and Sam's memories just for fun. It had some significance… Sam wished he could figure out what it was.

Currently, Sam got out of the car and went ahead to book the room. When he was back with the keys, he hesitated before knocking at the window on Dean's side. The latter woke up with a start. Sam showed him the room keys and gestured to their room before going ahead to extract their things from the boot. Dean got out of the car and stretched, and together, they entered their room.

The elder Winchester dropped on his bed when he was unpacked. He rested himself on one arm. "Wake me when you can dig something else up, will you?"

"That's all I could find out, Dean," Sam said to him. "I told you."

"Yeah, but how can there be nothing more? There has to be a name for the hospital, Sam."

"It's nowhere," Sam shrugged. "I tried everything I could, but I can't find any records of what hospital they were in."

Dean sighed. "But you have their addresses, don't you?"

"Yeah, I do."

He hauled himself off the bed and stretched again. "Then let's go talk to the families."

**~o~**

"Hello, Mrs Woods, I'm Father Martin and this is Father Hemming."

Mrs Woods stood frozen at the door, her eyes swivelling between the brothers. "What do you want?"

"We are junior priests from St Luke's Episcopal," said Sam mildly. "We're here to offer our deepest condolences."

Her expression softened. "Thank you, but I'm… I'm an atheist," she said mildly. She paused, looking guiltily at the brothers. She hesitated. "Why don't you come in?"

Dean looked at Sam, and the latter could make out a mild expression of triumph before they entered the home. They sat in the living room as Mrs Woods rushed off to fetch them some coffee, and Sam realised that something about the place was not right.

As if on cue, the EMF sensor in his pocket started to whine. Dean frowned at Sam. "What the hell?"

Sam shrugged and pulled out the sensor from his pocket. "Maybe some wiring thing." He turned to look at a small, old-fashioned radio-like device on a table not far away from where they were sitting, but there seemed to be no wires leading to a plug or a socket from the radio. Did it run on batteries, then? Looking around, Sam noticed that the room lacked the general evidence of electricity. No sockets, no light switches — hell, no light bulbs either. There were just candelabra on the walls, and a huge candle holder chandelier. Really, what was with this house?

Just as Sam was about to point this out to his brother, he heard a sigh from beside him. "What?" he asked, turning to Dean.

Dean raised his eyebrow. "What?"

"Were you about to say something?"

"No…"

Sam could swear he had heard someone sigh, and yet, he and Dean were the only ones in the room. On the wall beside Dean was the painting of an ugly old man, who, Sam could swear again, had moved just a tiny bit since he had first noticed him. All this was ringing a rather familiar bell inside of him, but Sam couldn't put a finger on what it was. In the meantime, Dean got up from beside him and strolled over to a cabinet on the corner table and opened it. It seemed to be stacked with old newspapers, magazines and files.

"Jackpot!" Dean exclaimed as he removed the files and looked at them. "Hey, check this out." The elder Winchester said, putting all the other things in and bringing the file to Sam. "Looks like this has medical records on it."

"SWH," Sam read out the letters emboldened on the front of the file, relieved that he wouldn't have to make an excuse to use the bathroom to dig around the rest of the house. He opened the file, to see that the first page consisted of rather thick paper, with a briefing of medical complaints, and what looked like medicine doses on it. "This is definitely Dave Woods's hospital record file," Sam whispered to his brother. He narrowed his eyes at the horrid handwriting, trying to figure out what was written, but all he could make out — and perhaps, it was wrong — was something that looked like 'Pain-Killing Potion.'

"Dave just loved my coffee," said a voice, and Sam immediately shut the file, hiding it under his coat as he did so. SWH. He'd have to find out about it. He turned to the widow, who served them the coffee.

"So, Mrs Woods, did you notice anything odd before—?"

"Before he died? No," the woman replied softly. "Dave had a toothache a year ago. He couldn't sleep, so I took him to the ER. The Hea – doctors treated it, and he was fine. And then, the next day, he just collapsed and started to convulse…" Tears were brimming in her eyes. "He went into cardiac arrest several times after that… I can't even count the number of cardiac arrests he's had… but thankfully, he was always okay after the CPR. He was paralysed and amnesic… he couldn't speak. He couldn't even recognise me… or remember who he was." Her voice broke.

"They had to keep him in the long-term ward at the hospital, and his symptoms were strange. But he seemed to be coping, you know. Considering. And then the other day…" She sniffed, unable to go on.

"We're sorry…" said Dean. "So he was in the hospital for a year?"

"Yes," replied the widow. "More than a year… about thirteen months."

"And before the toothache — was there any abnormal behaviour on his part?"

"No," Mrs Woods replied. "Of course not. He was perfectly normal."

"Did he seem scared of something?"

"He didn't," Mrs Woods replied sadly. "It was all just so sudden…" She wiped her eyes. "After a while, the Hea-doctors figured out that the medicines that they were administering for Dave's paralysis were causing the cardiac arrests because apparently, strokes and cardiac arrests don't match. The _pot _– medicines were acting like a poison, they said. So they couldn't even help him out of his paralysis.

"A few months after his attack, a new symptom started, that no-one could figure the cause of. He began to bleed … from everywhere. His eyes, nose, gums and ears. And – and on the… last day… it increased. It was u-uncontrollable. There was a lot of blood. They tried everything to help him. They s-said they'd never seen such a case before, because their medicines always work on paralysis, and there was no visible cause for the stroke. They don't know what caused the bleeding. The cause of death was…" She stopped, biting her lip.

"Was?" Sam pushed her gently.

"Exsanguination," Mrs Woods whispered. Wiping her eyes. "I don't even… who gets exsanguinated from a stroke…?"

"Mrs Woods," Sam sighed, "He's at peace now." He paused, remembering that he was a priest. "God will take care of him."

"If God had to take care of him, he'd have stopped the stroke from happening," Mrs Woods replied dryly. She glanced at the empty coffee cups. "I'm sorry, but I can't—"

"We understand," Dean said, standing up, as Sam did the same.

"We would like to thank you for sharing," Sam said to her, while Dean gave him a _'that's enough, movie star'_ look. "I hope we were able to help."

The woman smiled faintly. "Thank you."

Sam, and Dean left the house, processing the information that they had just received. Dave Woods seemed to have been fine before he had the toothache. He was perfectly healthy and of sound mind, and suddenly after that, he was critically ill for a whole year before dying. This meant that whatever had happened had happened at the hospital. Then why was the EMF metre spiking at the Woods' house? What about the strange portrait?

Sam couldn't help but think that a lot of things about this case were fishy.

**~o~**

"SWH, SWH! What the _fuck_ does SWH stand for?" asked Dean irately, running a hand through his hair.

"S for Springfield, and H for Hospital," Sam provided, his eyes narrowed as he skimmed through the file they'd got off the Woods' house. They had visited the families of the three other victims only to have the EMF metre go off again and again. And the symptoms and cause of death of the other three victims were the same as the first victim. They had seen the SWH files in two of the other houses, and didn't have to guess where the third victim had been before his death.

"Gee, thanks, Einstein," said Dean sarcastically, replying to what Sam had said. "I was wondering about the 'W', just so you know."

"You asked," the latter replied, shrugging.

"_Yeah, you ashked_," Dean repeated in a childish voice, mocking his brother. "Smart-ass," he muttered, taking a swig of his beer.

Sam was too busy going through the file to respond to it. "This is so weird, Dean, I can't even begin to describe it."

"Why, what else did you get?" Dean asked pulling a chair and seating himself next to his brother. "Something weirder than an exsanguinating stroke?"

"It's these medicines," said Sam, pushing the file towards Dean, so he could look. "Pain Killing Potion. Antiseptic Brew, Anti-Paralytic Draught…"

Dean squinted at the doctor's handwriting. "Is this a rude prank?"

"I don't know, man," said Sam. "It's just too weird. And I can't even find a Springfield W Hospital around here. The popular ones are St John's Hospital and Memorial Medical Center."

Dean shut the file and flipped it over. "There is an address here, though," he said, pointing to the bottom of the file.

"Oh," said Sam. "I didn't see that."

"Well, we've seen it now," Dean replied, putting his bottle down and going over to the bed to pick up his jacket. "Come on. We gotta find out what this hospital is all about."

**~o~**

"Take a right from here," said Sam, peering into the GPS on his phone. Dean did as his brother said, steering the Impala into a lane. They couldn't find SWH on the GPS, but the approximate address could be fortunately found.

"I'm telling you man," said Dean, "There's some serious mojo involved here."

"It's possible," said Sam. "I mean, we've never seen anything like this before, have we?"

"Not even close," Dean remarked. "We have to be very careful once we find out what this thing is. Gank it with a plan."

"Yeah," said Sam. He looked up. "This is all the GPS will locate."

"Okay, we ask some people then," said Dean, stopping the car.

A few minutes later, he was pulling up at the address mentioned at the back of the folder. It was an open space, right at the outskirts of the city with nothing but what looked like a junkyard. There was a sign in front of it.

**Danger. Keep away.**

Dean raised an eyebrow. "Dude, I think this is a rude prank."

Sam was silent for a moment. "People shouldn't be dying, then," he said. "Unless…" He swore under his breath.

"What?" Dean asked him. "You figure something out?"

"Yeah," said Sam, looking at him. "The Trickster."

There was silence, as they both added the circumstances, and the murders. None of them were ridiculous or like any of the Trickster's signature ways, and yet, they could only think of one creature, strong enough to play such pranks on them.

"Son of a bitch," Dean muttered suddenly. "When will he stop?"

"Why does he always go for us?" wondered Sam, irritated.

"I don't know, maybe he has the hots for you, Sammy!" said Dean in a half-frustrated, half-amused voice.

"Shut up."

There was silence again. "Crap," said Dean, breaking it after a while. "Are you sure it's him?"

"I don't know of anything else that can mess with us like this," shrugged Sam.

"Fine," said Dean grumpily. "Let's find him and kill him for sure this time."

"Do you know how to locate or summon these things?"

Dean shrugged. "I thought _you_ did."

"Well, that was fake Bobby who did the summoning that last time," said Sam. "I don't know if it was legit."

Dean took a deep breath. "So what do we do now, wait for another attack?"

"Do we have an option?" Sam asked him.

"Guess not."

**~o~**

"So this junkyard that we saw — think any of these cases have anything to do with it?"

Dean looked up from sharpening his stake. "Sam, those people were sick. Why would they be there?"

"I don't know," Sam replied. "I just have this feeling about that place."

"Well, that's a stupid feeling."

Sam looked at his brother. "I think we should go into the junkyard."

"Yeah, but in case you didn't notice, Sam, there was no one there."

"Still. Trust me on this, Dean."

There was silence as Dean continued with his work, no doubt considering what Sam had just said. Finally, he looked at the stake as he finished sharpening it, and sighed. "All right, let's go."

**~o~**

The junkyard was nothing but a huge mound of waste — mostly metal scrap, that no one seemed to own. This struck the Winchesters as strange — who would let go of metal scrap like that, when a decent business could be made out of it? As they walked through it, guns at the ready, they heard the sound of people talking.

Sam frowned at Dean. The latter put a finger to his lips and suggested that they split-up and approach the source of sound. Sam nodded at his elder brother and made his way in the other direction that Dean had pointed out to him. He emerged from behind a huge car door, to see two women conversing about something.

"— Dave Woods," one of them said. "He died a while ago. I was in charge. A very strange case of stroke."

"Yeah, and those three other patients. Don't you think death rate has been a bit high in the hospital lately? And how does one get exsanguinated from a stroke?"

"It has, and I have no idea. Still trying to process the fact that this happened."

The women, Sam noticed, were wearing what looked like long, loose-fitting, full-sleeved lavender gowns with the letters 'SWH' emblazoned at the back. _Robes_.

Sam frowned. The Trickster seemed to be crossing a new level with his pranks and his mischief. What the hell was this? Now he, Sam had to act fast and put an end to this.

He jumped out of his hiding place, pointing his gun at the women. "Freeze!"

They looked at him, eyes widened. "What – What?"

"FBI," said Sam, pulling out his badge.

One of the women looked at the other. "How did he get here?"

Sam raised an eyebrow as the other woman replied. "We – we need to summon the Obliviators, Sandy."

Sam raised an eyebrow. "Wait. What?"_ Obliviators?_

The women ignored him. "You go," said Sandy. "I'll take care of him." The other woman nodded and took a step backwards and disappeared. Was she a spirit?

Sandy, in the meantime, pulled out a stick from her pocket. "Put your gun down."

"What are you going to do, sweetheart, throw that stick at my brother?" said a voice as Dean stepped up from behind Sam, gun aloft. He turned to Sam. "All right, Sammy?"

Sam nodded, bewildered. He was starting to get rather bizarre ideas in his head, but he wasn't sure if they meant anything. He must be dreaming for sure. Either that, or this was most definitely the Trickster.

Sandy's eyes widened at Dean. "Look – look, don't kill me, okay?"

"Why?"

_Crack! Crack!_

Two men suddenly appeared at Sandy's side, wearing midnight-blue gowns like her.

"What the hell—?" Dean began, but one of them produced his stick and pointed it at the elder Winchester. _"Obliviate."_

"Hey!" Sam said, aiming his gun at the man, but the other man was pointing his stick at him.

Sam suddenly realised he knew what this was. _This can't be._

_"Obliviate."_

The only thoughts that raced through Sam's mind were those of utter bewilderment, before he forgot what he was thinking about. He turned to Dean, who had a vacant expression on his face. "Let's get out of here."

"Okay," Dean replied and they walked out of the gates, to the Impala. However, they did not see the blast of red hit their backs when they'd opened the car doors and Sam slipped into the arms of the welcoming blackness, just as Dean did the same.

* * *

**A/N:** Reviews, pretty please? I promise to reply!


	5. Time is Fluid

**A/N:** Another update! And it's all thanks to my wonderful beta, Expecto-Prongs.

You will see Cas's PoV in this chapter. I hate writing this fellow, I swear. The loveliest SPN character to write is Dean, though. Anyway, who's ready to start on the Destiel? ;)

In the meantime, lovelies, please review! I will appreciate and respond to each.

And I know I keep changing the genres on this story, but there's something for everyone in here, to be honest. There's action, romance, mystery, paranormal stuff (of course) and some h/c too. I don't usually write h/c — I hurt the characters and leave them there, lol but this one, I thought I'll go easier on them, haha!

Anyway, the title of this chapter is Castiel's quote from episode 4.03 — In the Beginning. I do not own anything there, but if I did, you'd never get any episodes because I'd just be staring up and Jensen and Jared and trying not to squeal (yes, staring up because Jensen is eleven inches taller than I am, and let's not talk about Jared shhhhh).

* * *

**4. Time is Fluid**

"According to what I found out," said Albus, scrutinising his notes, "The Winchesters are the only two Muggles to have ever entered SWH premises. They did it twice, too. They were trying to investigate something. The first time, they ran into two Healers, and alarmed at this, one of the Healers summoned the Obliviators immediately."

"And when was the hospital shut?"

"Months later," Albus replied. "After the Muggles were spotted again. And—" Albus continued, "The Muggles had a SWH case file on them the first time. It was of a patient who had died of a stroke."

"Did SWH keep records of this?"

"No, actually, I had the Obliviator Squad's help to do a complete check on the Muggle activity in the area. Because if Muggles were admitted at SWH, I reckoned the American Obliviators would have records of memory erasing. I was in luck. Unlike St Mungo's, SWH doesn't admit Muggle patients, which is why there have only ever been two Muggles to even get in."

Rose smiled. "So… if we reverse their memories and talk to them, Hugo can be cured?"

"Well, _we_ aren't doing anything — _I_ will — but it's not that easy."

"What do you mean?"

Albus sighed. "The record of the Winchesters' memory erasing dates back to 2009."

"So you can't find their whereabouts now?"

"I wish I could," said Albus. "But since they're Muggles, their records are in the Muggle database."

"And?"

"According to the Muggles, they died in early 2008 in a police station blast after being arrested by an FBI agent."

"But they were obviously alive in 2009."

"Yep. And there's a record of them being alive a few years later. Basically, there's no accurate record of whether they're alive or dead."

Rose put her hands on her hips and looked away. "Fuck!"

"Tell me about it."

There was silence. After a minute, Rose looked at her cousin. "I have an idea."

**~o~**

Scorpius turned on his bed, thoughts of Rose not allowing him to sleep. How would she be doing? Her brother was in a bad condition, after all, and Scorpius knew it couldn't be easy.

He had examined Hugo along with Boot, and by himself, and he could see that the prognosis wasn't good until and unless a cause for the stroke could be found. The cardiac arrests made no sense. None of the symptomatic treatment was working. But all tests on Hugo were normal, and there was nothing of imbalance that they could find. Then how were they supposed to cure him?

The young Healer knew he'd have to tell Rose's family about Hugo's prognosis really soon — if they didn't find a cause. He didn't fancy doing that. He couldn't bear to think of what Rose would go through. He really cared for her — not just because she was carrying his baby — genuinely.

At first, Scorpius thought he had lost his feelings for Rose. He had wanted to try a relationship with Rose again when he and Victoire had broken up, but he wasn't sure if he loved her anymore. However, his question was answered as the months went by. He did actually love her. He did want her to be with him — for their family to be together. However, Rose would have none of that. She refused to believe Scorpius.

He knew now that he had hurt her much more than he had estimated.

Sighing, Scorpius sat up. It wasn't likely that he'd sleep tonight. His mind was too full. He stretched and proceeded to his bathroom, deciding to visit Hugo at St Mungo's and doing a bit of his own research at the library about this mysterious stroke. He was willing to work very hard to save Hugo's life. And if he did it, maybe Rose would come back to him. Maybe.

**~o~**

"I don't think your plan is going to work, Rose," muttered Albus as he and Rose sat in Hugo's ward at night. Rose had fought with her parents again to let her spend the night at the hospital. "We really need to think of something else. I'm serious." He had taken a quick Portkey to SWH earlier that day and spoken to Hugo's friends. According to them, Hugo had been perfectly fine until the last minute he'd spent with them.

"This is the only way," Rose whispered to Albus, watching her brother sleep peacefully. "You heard Hugo's friends. Nothing seemed wrong at all, so it was something else that they don't know about, and these Winchester people might have an answer to it."

"We don't know that," Albus said to her. "There's no evidence that the Winchesters found out anything about what was really going on. And I don't think your way is possible anymore. We need to look for some other method."

"It _is_ possible," said Rose. "My way," she added. "And it's worth asking the Winchesters at least once. What if they know something?"

"Well, yeah, if there's a way to actually talk to the Winchesters. But… how are you so sure that what you're saying is promising?"

"I know things that you don't, Al."

Albus rolled his eyes. "You're never going to explain it straight, are you?"

"You'll know," said Rose. "In a few minutes."

"Why? What's happening in a few minutes?"

"Wait and watch."

Albus sighed and sat back in his armchair. "Are you at least going to sleep?" He asked Rose, gesturing to the couch.

"I'm excited about finding a cure for my brother, Al," she replied. "Don't expect me to sleep today."

Albus just shook his head. "You're so stubborn sometimes…"

"At least I'm not like Scorpius," said Rose. "He's even worse. Won't give up on a damn thing."

"Have you ever tried looking at it as him just being dedicated, rather than stubborn?" Albus asked her.

"In that case," said Rose, "He was dedicated to breaking us up. And why do you stick up for him so much anyway? You barely knew him at Hogwarts."

"I know him now from your descriptions," shrugged Albus. "And looks to me like he tried. He just gave up in the end. It's not just his fault there." He looked at Rose with truthful green eyes. "Am I right?"

"Yeah," sighed Rose. "I screwed up too. But I tried to apologise. He wouldn't listen."

"He couldn't handle being hurt, that's all."

"Whatever."

"You know better than I do," shrugged Albus.

A moment later, they heard footsteps approach Hugo's ward and Albus stood up from his armchair. "Is a Healer supposed to come now?"

"They can come at any time," said Rose, standing up too. "Besides, I doubt it's a Healer."

"Who is it?" asked Albus, noticing that his cousin had stood up. However, he got his answer at once when a familiar figure entered the room. He recognised the person and smiled at the new arrival. "Hey, Molly!"

Molly was Albus's favourite cousin after Rose and Hugo. He liked how laid back she could be, and yet she was dedicated to everything she did. Albus and Rose both considered Molly a comforting elder sister, and they often confided into her. Currently, Albus watched as Molly stepped into the room and approached him and Rose, her long, red hair hanging loose and her grey eyes sparkling as always, when she saw her two cousins. She smiled at them. "Hey Al, hey Rosie!"

Rose smiled at her. "Hey." Albus remembered the short, serious conversation that Rose and Molly had had the previous day when the latter had come to visit Hugo with her parents and Lucy. He realised now that it had been one of the grand schemes of saving Hugo's life.

"Have you got it?" Rose asked the other Weasley.

"Got what?" Albus asked Molly, but the latter just winked at him as she reached for her bag.

"I have it," she said to Rose.

"They didn't notice—?"

"Nah," said Molly. She looked sad. "Everyone's preoccupied, you know," she turned briefly to Hugo. "The baby of the family is sick again," she sighed sadly. "Your dad and Uncle George never noticed that it was gone." Much to her father's chagrin, after completing her education, Molly had decided that she wanted to help invent things at the joke shop. She wasn't very good at jokes — just the part which went into actually bringing her uncle's ideas to life. Thanks to her, Weasley's Wizarding Wheezes had expanded furthermore, and had franchises in various countries now.

"Let's see what you've got there, then," said Rose, and Molly seemed to realise that her hand was still stuck inside her bag. Looking up at her cousins, she grinned mysteriously, and extracted an archaic-looking clock from inside it.

"Ta-da!"

"Wow!" said Rose, taking the clock from her cousin. It was circular in shape, with white with black bordering. The hour and minute hands were intricately designed and the side was carved. And as Albus looked at it properly, he realised that the clock wasn't exactly like a regular clock. The numbers that lined its sides were in the reverse order — the mirror image of an actual clock, so that the clock was actually going backwards. He was intrigued.

"Can this really—?" he whispered to Molly, still ogling at the clock.

"Yep," said Molly. "We're officially releasing it in a month. We will finally have Time-Turners again."

Rose chuckled. "I still can't believe that Mum and Dad were actually involved in the fight that destroyed all of them."

"Well, we have them again," said Molly. "And it's got a lot of features too."

"Like?"

"Well, for starters, you can travel to any era you like," said Molly. "Even to times before you were born, and after your death. And it turns into a viewing portal if you want to see what your past or future self is doing while you time travel."

"We have two 'selves'?" Rose asked her. "Doesn't an imprint of us usually travel back or forth in time normally?"

"Well, that's the part we're still working on," said Molly. "See, the Time-Turners earlier were only meant for travelling back a few hours. And like you said, the imprint was what travelled in time — a solidified spirit of you, if you may. You would travel through the past few hours and come back to the present, so in actuality, no time would have passed in the present. With this, however, the person actually has two selves. Your soul goes with the part of you that's travelling, and your soulless, present body slips into a coma of sorts. So there is a gap, as the time that you're warping is much more. Time will pass in the present too."

Rose looked at Albus unsurely. "Is it safe?"

"Waking up from the coma is a hundred per cent," said Molly. "As long as someone is there to take care of the person who's gone, there won't be a problem. But we're trying to find out if there's a way we can avoid the coma, in case some poor bastard time travels without telling anyone."

Rose shuddered at that. However, she smiled at her cousin. "Thanks, Molly."

"No problem. When are you doing it?"

"Right now," Albus replied. "I'm prepared," he said, picking up his rucksack from the couch.

"You want to wait while we do it?" Rose asked Molly.

"Sure—"

"Wait, _we_?" Albus cut through, as he slung the bag over his shoulders. He raised an eyebrow at Rose. "There's no _we_ here, Rose, it's going to be me."

"I'm coming," Rose said to him, producing her mother's small, beaded bag from her robe pocket. "I'm prepared too. See?"

"No!"

"Why not?"

"Because you're—"

"Pregnant?" Rose asked her cousin. "Al, come on, not you too!"

"But what if it takes long?" Albus asked her. He looked at Molly. "She will still be pregnant if she time travels, right?"

"She will," said Molly. "Both in the past and the present."

"See?" said Albus, turning to Rose. "We can't risk you being in a coma while you're pregnant, Rose."

Rose sighed. "I'll come back if it takes long, okay? Before the delivery."

"But you're going to be in a _coma_!"

"You think pregnant people have never been in comas before?" Rose asked him. "It can be taken care of, Al. The only thing to look out for is nutrition and I know they'll make sure I'm fine."

Albus sighed. "Come on, Rosie…"

"I can't let you go alone. Not with the condition it will land you in while you are gone. Uncle Harry and Aunt Ginny will kill me."

"And what do you think happens to _me_ if both of you go?" asked Molly from the background. "Rosie, seriously, let Al go and sort it out."

"But I really want to go!"

"Go where?" asked a voice, and Rose grimaced. Albus looked over her shoulder to see Scorpius Malfoy at the door.

Rose turned around to look at Malfoy. "None of your business. What are you doing here anyway?"

"Trying to cure your brother," said Malfoy. "You should be asleep."

Rose made a face at him. "I'll do what I like."

That was when Albus remembered what Rose had said about Malfoy being impossibly stubborn. He decided to use this to his advantage. "But really, Rose, coming with me—"

Rose glared at him, but Malfoy had cottoned on. "What's happening here? Rose, you should be careful."

Rose sighed. "Look, I'm not _endangering_ myself, okay? And you do your work. I'll do mine."

Malfoy sighed, and turned to Hugo. Albus was disappointed. He had really hoped that Malfoy would fight, but the latter seemed to be defeated.

"So, you're leaving right away, aren't you?" Molly asked Albus.

He nodded. "How do I set the date?"

"Adjust the year that you want to go to," Molly instructed him, pointing to a small display window with a dial. "And concentrate on the date and place."

"Okay."

"Once you do that, you activate it by moving the minute hand clockwise, because you're going in the past. It will take you there in thirty seconds."

Malfoy turned around once, bewildered, but went back to examining Hugo. Albus nodded at Molly. "Let's go somewhere private?"

"Yeah." They walked out of the room and went into the next ward, which was deserted. Albus took a deep breath and set the year to 2009. "Now what?" he asked Molly, concentrating on late April in Springfield. The date of the memory erasing was registered as the twenty-eighth of April.

"All set?" Molly asked him.

Albus nodded and turned to Rose. "I'll do this by myself. Trust me."

She opened her mouth to argue, but then she sighed. "Fine."

Albus smiled at her. "Good. Now take care of my comatose form, will you?"

"I'll put loads of make-up on it," Rose offered.

"As long as I don't die…"

She smiled wanly at him. "Take care."

Albus nodded. With a shaking finger, he turned the minute hand clockwise. He held his breath as he rotated it, starting to mentally count seconds.

_Twenty-nine, twenty-eight, twenty-seven… twenty, nineteen… fifteen… _and then it all happened when he counted to eight. Rose entwined her arm around his.

"What are you doing?" Albus asked, but his voice was backed-up by Malfoy's, who had entered their ward. There was a gasp from Molly.

"Rosie! No!"

It was a brief tangle of words and arms, before Albus felt a cold sheath of blackness fall over him.

**~o~**

Somebody needed to talk to Dean.

Castiel let his vessel rest his legs by sitting down on a park bench and crossing his arms. A few children played at the swing set in the distance, and as Castiel eyed the pure innocence dripping off the little humans, he couldn't help but marvel his father's creation. But then again, these children would grow up and all innocence would drain away. The natural order of things, of course. Innocence couldn't last forever.

Currently, Castiel drew away his mind from the miniature humans and thought about the events at the hospital from weeks ago. His chat with Dean. There was something about it that couldn't get Castiel to stop thinking. He knew that he was being scrutinised for his sympathy towards Dean, but he could hardly control it. Human tears were never pleasant to look at. It meant that Father's creations were in overwhelming pain. And Castiel could not sit quietly at that.

Anna would call it sympathy, and convince Castiel that he could feel. But how was this sympathy? It was just love for his father. If Castiel's father loved these humans, then surely, their suffering was not a good thing. And for that, Castiel hoped that Dean would have help.

_"Seriously, Cas?"_ he could almost hear Dean saying. _"You consider me something other than a weapon to stop Lilith?"_

Cas. A 'nickname', as humans called it. They liked keeping long names and shortening them. Like Sam was short for Samuel. Castiel couldn't understand if humans were just lazy, or if it was something else.

"It's in their foolishly loving nature to shorten perfectly good names," Uriel had once explained, when Castiel had expressed his bewilderment at this. But he still didn't get what names had to do with love. However, he had other concerns at the moment.

_Will Dean feel better?_

Castiel was wondering, hoping for an answer from somewhere, when he felt it. _The ripple_. It was small: humans would never know. However, he could feel it, and he knew what it was.

_Time is fluid_, he thought to himself. He wondered who had travelled in time and come to this era. Well, whatever it was, he had other things to take care of. The universe was never stagnant and such things kept happening all the time. Right now, Castiel had to find a way to help Dean. He stood up from the bench.

The children at the park didn't hear the gentle flutter of wings, or notice the man in the trenchcoat vanish as they continued to play.

**~o~**

When Molly came to, her head was spinning. She was lying on her back, on a very warm, rough surface, and bright light fell into her eyes from all directions. It was also incredibly noisy. The sound of people and cars… She grimaced. Where the hell was she?

"Ma'am, are you all right?"

There was something odd about the way the person spoke, Molly realised, as two fingers felt her carotid.

"Normal pulse," said the same voice, and Molly realised what was odd. The person was speaking in an _American_ accent.

Startled, Molly opened her eyes to find herself on the ground, a few people standing around her, while a man crouched next to her. The feel of warm concrete below her said that she was on the footpath in some place. What in Merlin's name?

"Relax, I'm a doctor," the man said, as Molly tried to sit up. "How do you feel?"

"I'm – I'm okay," Molly replied, resisting him and sitting up anyway. "I… I don't know what happened…"

"New in town?" the man asked, noticing the accent.

_Too new._ "Yeah," Molly replied. "Er — what day is it?"

"Wednesday," he replied.

"No, no the – the year?" Molly asked him desperately, and she could see the concern in his eyes.

"2009," he replied. "You seem to have a concussion. If you could just come to my clinic—"

"I'm fine…" said Molly. "Just – just…" What the hell? How was she in 2009 now? What had happened? She blinked. Did this mean that Rose was here too?"

"My – my sister," Molly sputtered, the thought suddenly sending panic signals through her body.

"Your sister?"

"She was with me. She's six months pregnant."

The man nodded. "If that's your sister, I've got her. She's fine. She's sitting and watching us right now."

"I need to see…" Molly began to get to her feet as the doctor protested. "I'll be okay, thanks," she said to him. "My sister and I — we were in a s–small accident."

"So you don't happen to know the two other men?"

"Who?"

"Both are probably a little younger than you are — one blond, one with black hair?"

Molly bit her lip. Albus and Malfoy were here too. They had to get away from these Muggles and get back to their own year. "I – I know them," she replied. "Are they all right?"

"They are. That's one hell of an accident you people seemed to have been in. I can swear there are four concussions."

"I'm fine. We'll be fine," Molly told the doctor. "Thanks."

"Well," he said, producing his card. "Give me a call if symptoms get aggravated. Ideally, you should all be in a hospital, but since you're conscious, I can't force you."

"Thank you, and we will consult you if it bothers us," said Molly. "It's just… I'm not sure what happened there…"

"I get it. Take care of yourself and your sister."

"I will," said Molly. "Thank you."

She finally stood up and the people around her parted and walked away as she saw Rose sitting at the staircases of an apartment building in front of her, looking worried. Molly rushed to her. "We need to get you back," she whispered, as she crouched beside Rose to help her stand up.

"I'm fine."

"No, Rose."

"Are _you_ okay?"

"Yeah," said Molly. "Why?"

"Because you took a while to wake up. I was on my back and couldn't even get to you, so I asked the doctor to see you once he'd helped me."

"I'm fine, Rose," said Molly, putting an arm around the other woman as she swayed. "You don't seem good, though. What happened?"

"A little dizzy," Rose muttered. "But I'll be okay. Where's Al—?"

"I'm right here," said a voice, and they saw Albus walk to them. "Both of you get back to St Mungo's in our year," he said as he approached them.

"I'm not listening to you," Rose scowled at Albus.

"Yes, you are," said a voice behind Molly's ear, and Scorpius Malfoy joined them, still in his Healer's robes, and utterly bewildered. "Is this 2009? How and why did we all get here?"

"Yeah, we are in the past," Molly told him. "Al is trying to find out what's wrong with Hugo. I think we may all have just caught on to each other instead of prying Rose away. Anyway," she turned to Rose. "You and I are going back. Malfoy, are you coming?"

"I'll stay and help Potter," said Scorpius. "But someone will have to tell me why we have travelled twenty years in the past for something that's happening in 2029."

"Al will explain everything," Molly told him. "And one of you will have to make the trip with us back to the future, so you can come back with the Time-Turner."

"I'll do it," Scorpius volunteered.

"Good. Let's find a secluded place." Molly turned to Rose, who looked ready to grumble. "It's for your own good, Rose. Please come back."

"Okay…" said Rose sadly.

"Please."

"Yeah, Fine."

Molly smiled at her. "Good. Come on, I can see an alleyway across the street."

Once in the alleyway, Albus handed Molly the Time-Turner, and she put 2029 on the number dial, before starting to rotate the minute hand. As she finished rotating it, she linked arms with Rose, who in turn linked arms with Scorpius, waiting for the blackness to come again, and the thirty seconds to pass.

Thirty seconds went by, Molly thinking of the extremely uneventful time-travel that had occurred just now. Well… not so uneventful… the concerned doctor would always make her laugh.

The thirty seconds rolled by, and seemed to give way to a whole minute… two minutes…

Nothing happened.


	6. The Big Meeting

**A/N: **Hello, all!

This was one of the more fun chapters for me to write, and I hope you guys enjoy it too. Many thanks to my beta, Expecto-Prongs for her speedy work!

* * *

**5. The Big Meeting**

"What in the name of Merlin…?"

Molly tried moving the minute hand for a second time, and waited with Rose and Scorpius to be transported to their year but once again, nothing happened. She turned to Albus. "Did this fall off your hand or something?"

"Well, I had a rough landing and it pretty much crashed into the concrete, but it didn't fall off my hand."

Molly turned the clock over in her hands and sighed. "I think it's broken."

"But you can fix it, right?"

"I don't know, unless I find out _what's_ broken," said Molly. "It seems good on the outside, which means something's broken inside. And once I take this thing apart, I need the blueprint to fix it back."

"Didn't you make this?"

"Nope. This is completely Uncle George's creation. He's been working on it for ages — in fact some of it he designed with Uncle Fred."

There was silence. All the Weasley children knew about their Uncle Fred, and about how he had died in the war. Even though she had never met the man, Rose always felt a pang of sadness at the name.

Albus finally spoke quietly. "But you'd have some idea…"

"I might," said Molly. "It's going to take a while, though." She sighed. "Fuck."

"Tell me about it," said Albus, folding his arms and looking at Rose. "We can't let you stay here, Rose."

"I don't see another option," Rose shrugged.

"Unfortunately, there isn't one," Molly agreed with her.

"Not unless we can get a Time-Turner issued from the American Ministry," said Albus, determined. "Maybe we can do that."

"And what reason will you give?" Rose asked Albus. "Even if the Ministry does own Time-Turners that can warp years like this one, we're supposed to register _any_ time travel with the Ministry, remember? If we own a Time-Turner, or intend to make trips back and forth in time, the Ministry has to know, and we've come here without permission despite that. I don't know about you, but I don't want to rot in Azkaban now."

"They won't arrest us."

"Why, because we're the 'Potter-Weasley clan'? I don't think they'll make an exception for this. Time travel is serious business." Albus licked his lips and Rose sighed. "You know I'm right, Al."

"Yeah, but you need to get back!" said Al, agitated. "First of all, you're pregnant, and apart from that, do you realise that four comatose people are lying outside Hugo's ward at St Mungo's right now, with no one to explain what's happened?"

"Oh, shite, that too," said Molly, as though she'd just remembered it. "Shit, shit, we really have to get back!"

"Start working on the Time-Turner then," Albus told her. "We'll get rooms at an inn; and Malfoy and I will find the Winchesters and talk to them. Rose can get some rest in the meantime."

"Sounds like a plan," said Molly, but Rose scowled.

"I'm investigating along with you," she said to Albus. "I'm here, and we can't go anywhere—"

"Do you realise how pale you are?" Scorpius asked her, cutting in. "You don't look good at all."

"I feel fine," said Rose, crossing her arms. "I wouldn't be upright if I had a problem." She sighed inwardly, cursing Scorpius for noticing it. She had a nagging pain in her back — a normal pregnancy pain, but it wasn't bad or crippling, and she was sure she could handle a little pain for Hugo. Plus, she had all kinds of medicinal potions in her bag, which she could take if it got really bad.

Albus sighed. "Fine. But can we find an inn first, please? If you people don't realise, it's still the middle of night where we came from."

Molly stretched. "Yeah. Think I could do with a nap too."

"No, no, we need to meet the Winchesters!" said Rose, folding her arms.

"It will take a while to get to them, Rose," said Albus. "Let's at least get an hour's rest before running around this country."

"Weren't you going to investigate immediately?" Rose asked him.

"No, there's a specific time when we can catch them, and that's not now. I planned this travel in a way that would give me plenty of time before I could run into the Winchesters, just so I can get them for sure, without any confusion. I wanted it to be clean. So trust me when I say we have time to rest."

"Okay," she agreed reluctantly. She had a sneaky feeling that Molly would be done fixing the clock within the hour, and she, Rose, would have to go back before she could accompany Albus in anything.

She couldn't have been more wrong.

**~o~**

"So the Winchester brothers — they know about all of this?" Scorpius asked Albus as he, Rose, Albus and Molly walked around, trying to locate an inn. They had established by now that they were in Springfield, and a few locals had said that a good inn was a walkable distance away. However, Scorpius was still trying to wrap his head around the idea that he was actually in the past.

"We think so."

"They'd better know," said Rose. "Because this is a wasted trip otherwise."

"They definitely knew something," said Albus. "Because they went to SWH twice."

"And how are you going to locate them?" Scorpius asked Albus.

"I can't locate them, but I know that they're here today," replied the other man. "I have the date and time of their memory erasing, and I think…" he checked his watch, quickly re-calculating the time zone differences, "they will show up at SWH in roughly two hours."

"Okay, so we go there and catch them?"

"No, we wait for their memories to be erased, get out of eyeshot of the Obliviators, and then we catch them."

"And…?"

"We get them here, remove the Memory Charms, talk to them, and let them go."

"Sounds like a plan," said Scorpius. "Are you sure they won't register a complaint against us for kidnapping?"

"I doubt it," said Albus. "They're already in trouble with the law, judging by the few things that I found out about them."

"Ah, finally," Molly sighed, cutting the conversation short. "The inn."

Scorpius turned in the direction that she was pointing at to see a decent-looking inn. It belonged to Muggles. However, there was one problem.

"Anyone got Muggle money?" Molly asked.

"I have some," said Albus, pulling out his rucksack and rummaging inside it. "I came prepared for a few days' stay."

"I have some too," replied Rose, waving her beaded bag at Molly.

"Thank Merlin, at least you're prepared for this," said Molly, as they made their way into the inn. They got two rooms to share, as they didn't want Albus and Rose to run out of money too soon.

Scorpius walked to their rooms behind Rose, and watched as she opened the door to the first room and looked at Molly. They entered it together. Good. Rose needed rest. Scorpius could make out there was some problem — she seemed to be in pain, but she wasn't ready to let anyone know. She could be so silly sometimes.

Meanwhile, Scorpius and Albus unlocked the next room and walked in one after the other. As he settled on a bed, Scorpius wondered about the strange company that he was keeping at the moment. Everybody had expected Rose and Albus to not get along with Scorpius at Hogwarts, but conversely, neither the Potter-Weasley clan, nor Scorpius had really cared about the other party. The first time that Scorpius had even got to know Rose was when he was her patient.

He pulled off his shoes and lay down on the bed as Albus emerged from the bathroom. "You're coming to get the Winchesters, right?" He asked Scorpius.

The latter nodded. "Yeah. You know where the hospital is?"

"Not far from here," Albus told him. "I can take you Side-Along."

"And Rose?"

"She can rest."

Scorpius shrugged as he adjusted his pillow, yawning. He turned to his side, his entire body soaking up the relaxation it hadn't received in a while. Scorpius had never expected to be involved with something so strange, but here he was — in a temporary, but equally weird situation, with the unlikeliest people for company.

He didn't know how wrong he was about this being temporary.

**~o~**

"Okay, Rose, hold on to that," said Albus, handing Rose an old fizzy drink bottle.

She scowled at him as she took the bottle. Albus, however, didn't apologise for the fight that they'd just had. After the nap, Rose had emerged, looking paler, and insisted on accompanying Scorpius and Albus on the Winchester operation. After a lot of argument and yelling, Albus had no option left, but to create a Portkey for his cousin.

Currently, Albus nodded at Scorpius, who nodded back curtly and held on to the former's biceps. With a final sweep of a glance around himself, Albus turned on his heel, just as Rose's Portkey glowed blue, and in a few seconds, they were all standing outside a huge hospital. "SWH," said Albus, reading out the three huge letters standing out brightly at the head of the entrance. He checked his watch. "The Winchesters should be here any time now."

As soon as he had said it a sleek, black car rolled into the little street. "This could be them," Albus breathed, as he grabbed Rose's arm and steered her through the gates of the hospital. They hid behind a wall outside the A&E — the ER, as the Americans referred to it, and waited for the car to stop outside. There were no Healers around — they all seemed quite busy. However, the ER doors opened and a young Trainee eyed Rose as she passed by.

"If you're here for your check-up, you're looking for the third floor," she said. "There's a slight change—"

"No, no, I'm fine," said Rose hastily. "I've come to meet someone."

"Oh, then go right to the lobby. The WelcomeWitch will guide you."

Rose smiled at her. "Thank you."

The young woman nodded, before going her way. Once she left, Albus trained his eyes at the gate as two men walked towards it, clad in Muggle work clothes. "This is them," he said.

"Pretty sure it is," Scorpius agreed with him as the Winchesters entered the premises, confusion clouding their features while they pulled out their guns.

The two men were tall — Albus would have mistaken the taller one for a half-giant if he didn't know better. The shorter man wasn't really short either. He just seemed dwarfed in comparison to his brother. In truth, he seemed like he was taller than Albus by at least three inches, and Albus realised that the men looked quite alarming.

"Well, they're tiny," commented Scorpius sarcastically, although, he was better matched to the shorter man's height than Albus was.

"Tell me about it," muttered Albus, as the Winchesters walked around, guns at the ready and utterly bewildered.

The taller man said something to his brother and they headed the other way towards the lobby. Just then, two Healers exited the ER and started to make their way to the lobby, pausing to talk about something.

"We lost Dave Woods," one of them said. "He died a while ago. I was in charge. A very strange case of stroke."

"Yeah, and those three other patients. Don't you think death rate has been a bit high in the hospital lately? And how does one get exsanguinated from a stroke?"

"It has, and I have no idea. Still trying to process the fact that this happened."

Albus turned his glance to see the shorter Muggle press a finger to his lips as he continued to the lobby. The other man retreated his steps to the ER. They probably had no idea where they were headed to, but the tall man reached the Healers with his gun and identified himself as FBI.

Rose turned to Albus and gave him an incredulous look at the blatant impersonation, and they watched on as the Healers panicked and summoned the Obliviators. Memories erased, the men began to leave the hospital premises.

"Come on," Albus whispered to his companions and they slowly followed the men, who were too out of it to realise that they were being followed. If they were in their senses, Albus was sure he'd have suffered a gunshot injury by now.

They followed the brothers to the sleek, black car — a Chevrolet Impala — and as the shorter man walked to the driver's side, Albus nodded to Scorpius. Together, they aimed their wands at the two broad backs before them.

_"Stupefy."_

The men dropped to the ground, unconscious.

**~o~**

Molly stood up at the sounds emanating from the room next to hers and Rose's. She looked down at the Time-Turner that she'd taken apart. A part of it was broken inside — shattered, rather, and Molly had no idea how to rebuild the thing. She needed help from someone who would know about such things, but she had no idea who to approach for it.

At present, however, her cousins and Scorpius seemed to have found the Winchester brothers, judging by the scuffling sounds in the opposite room. Leaving the dismantled Time-Turner on the floor, Molly rushed to the next room.

"Who's it?" asked Albus's tentative voice when Molly knocked.

"Molly," she replied, and she heard a sigh of relief as he cousin opened the door. His eyes darted about the corridor before he beckoned for her to go in.

She entered the room to find two men on the twin beds, both very tall, and, Molly bit her lip as the thought crossed her mind — both very _handsome_. They both had brown hair, and the one with the lighter hair (more dirty blonde than brown) wore it cropped and spiked, while the other man wore it longer, fringes covering the sides of his large forehead and falling into his eyes, while the rest of his hair curled around his ears and neck in layers. Molly raised her eyebrow at Albus. "That's two pretty ones you've got us. Do I get a chance to talk to them?"

He smiled. "You can, though I doubt they'll like us very much."

"Oh, they'll like me," said Molly, grinning, as she watched Scorpius tie up the men to the bedposts. "Ah, I'd like to do that one day without so many clothes on."

Rose, who was standing next to her, nudged her Molly's ribs and the latter turned to Rose. "Yeah, stop that. I can hear your loins—"

"Merlin, Molly, shut up."

"Oh, come on, I can't be the only one!"

Scorpius raised an eyebrow, while Albus waved dismissively. "I have Amy," he said, referring to his girlfriend. "And I don't swing that way."

Molly grimaced. "Killjoys, all of you. Anyway, fun's over, I suppose. Let's hear what they have to say."

"In a minute," said Albus. He straightened from tying up the taller man. "Any progress on the Time-Turner?"

"Wish I could say yes," sighed Molly.

"How long?"

Molly took a deep breath and braced herself for the reaction. She looked into her cousin's green eyes. "Honestly? I don't know."

_"What?!"_

She bit her lip again. "This part — the important part of the clock is broken really badly. I need to figure out how to fix it."

"But you guys can't stay here forever!" said Albus, glancing at the brothers. "We don't have money or the resources, Rose is pregnant, and we're all in a coma to boot."

Molly nodded. "I know. I'll need help fixing it."

"Can we help?"

"I don't think you guys would understand how it works either," said Molly. "I don't know where to look for help, and if I do it by myself, it's going to take a while."

"Great," said Albus, running a hand through his hair.

"I'm sorry," Molly replied.

He shook his head at her. "Not your fault, Molly. It's really my mistake. I should have handled it carefully."

"So," Rose began in a small voice, "We might have to stay back awhile even after we figure out how to help Hugo?" Her hand flew to her belly.

"Afraid so," replied Molly.

Scorpius licked his lips and looked at Rose. "We can maybe get a local Healer for your routines while you're here, then."

"That's all fine," replied Rose, "But the money? I didn't realise this could be a long stay, so I really don't have much."

"We'll have to work," sighed Albus. "None of our Gringotts accounts exist right now, so I think we'll have to earn some money. I have my ID from the Ministry…"

"Scorpius and I can work as Healers," said Rose.

"You're not doing anything," Scorpius warned her.

"Come on, my job is just to sit in a room and talk to strangers. And I should chip in."

"I could work as a waitress or a salesgirl," said Molly.

There was silence. Albus glanced over at the forgotten brothers, realising then that they had more pressing matters at hand. Hugo was really, actually dying, and they needed to help him. He licked his lips. "Let's get to work."

Scorpius nodded and he and Albus simultaneously pointed their wands at the brothers. _"Enervate."_

**~o~**

Dean didn't like the sensation in his gut when he came to. He had no idea what had just happened. All he knew was that his gun was not in his hands, and worst of all — he was tied to something. He could feel the softness of a mattress below him.

Bewildered, Dean opened his eyes to find himself in a hotel room bed, facing four other people, all younger than him, and standing over his bed. There were two redheaded girls — one of them visibly pregnant (what the hell did a pregnant chick want with Dean?). The other one was probably as old as Sam. There were also two boys, one black-haired with prominently green eyes, and another blonde kid with a frigid expression on his face. Dean heard a groan and turned to see Sam wake up too. What on earth was happening? What did these people want from him and Sam?

"You know," he said, hoarsely, licking his dry lips and mustering some courage. "I always knew I was handsome, but I never realised that there were people who would want me so much."

He waited for a 'shut up', or a punch or a kick or a blow, but nothing happened. The only thing that seemed to change was the expression on one of the red haired girls — the non-pregnant one — she seemed amused. Dean liked the look of her — she was a hot piece. It was a pity that she was the enemy.

He cracked his best smile at her. "Like what you see, sweetheart?"

The girl's grin widened. "Maybe. You answer a few questions, and we can talk about it." She had an English accent. That was interesting.

Dean raised an eyebrow. "What do you want from us? Look whatever it is, let Sam go—"

"Sam," said the pregnant girl, eyeing Dean's brother. She had an English accent too, and Dean could bet his Impala that the boys were also English. Now what? International monsters after him and Sam? "So you must be Dean," she said, not taking her eyes off him.

"Guess I'm popular," Dean replied to her, discretely trying to undo the rope that bound him to the bedpost.

"We're not going to hurt you," the black-haired man from beside Dean spoke calmly. "We just need a few answers."

"Yeah, and tying us up really proves your point," said Sam, speaking up.

"No, look, we had no other way to do this. We thought you would attack us if we just approached you," provided the pregnant woman, coming forward. She and the attractive one were probably sisters. "I'm Rose Weasley," she said, introducing herself.

"Molly Weasley," said the other woman.

Dean looked at the two men. "Albus Potter," replied the black-haired kid.

"Scorpius Malfoy," said the blonde one, and Dean felt his eyes widen in amusement.

"What, Scorpius? _Scorpius?_ Seriously? What were your parents, drunk?"

The kid just shrugged. Dean sighed. He didn't trust these people, but maybe they'd let him and Sam go if he was compliant enough, he reckoned. "I'm Dean Winchester," he said, "and that is my brother, Sam. If you want answers from us, you'd better untie us."

"And you promise not to hurt us?" Rose asked him.

"Not if you don't," said Dean. "And if this is _our_ kind of problem, we can help you."

Albus looked at Rose, and she nodded. "Fine," replied the boy, coming over to untie Dean, as Scorpius went to untie Sam. The brothers sat up a moment later, rubbing their wrists, as the kids stood alert, waiting for an attack. When everyone in the room had established that no one was attacking anyone, everybody relaxed.

"So, what is it?' Sam asked them, crossing his arms.

Rose looked at Molly, and then at Albus. "You… you have to know something first."

"What?"

"We… er… I… basically, we're not like you."

"Meaning?" Sam asked her. His face had a look that Dean recognised very well. Sam knew something.

"I'm a witch," said Rose suddenly. "Molly too."

"_Holy_—" Dean made to get up. Sam had copied him, but they felt themselves being pushed onto the bed again by an invisible force, as the door behind Rose locked itself.

"Al and Scorpius are wizards," Rose continued, as though she hadn't just used her mojo on the Winchesters. "You have to listen to us, _please_," she said again, a thin, long stick evident in her hand. Was that a _wand_? Dean felt like an idiot. "We're not here to harm you, or anyone else!"

"Why should we listen to a witch?" Dean hissed at her. And to think that he'd found Molly attractive! Ugh!

"Please," Rose repeated, and she seemed surprised at the fact that Dean believed she was a witch. "We won't hurt you."

"Yeah, and the next thing I know, there's a hex bag in my car!" Dean said incredulously.

Albus looked bewildered. "We haven't hexed your bag. What are you talking about?"

"Oh, don't talk as though you don't know!" said Dean. He turned to Sam, who was eyeing the stick in Rose's hand. "You believe a word—?"

Sam cut Dean short and asked the witches the strangest question. "What are your names again?"

"Rose Weasley," Rose answered immediately. "These are my cousins," she said, pointing at Albus and Molly. "Albus Potter and Molly Weasley."

"Scorpius Malfoy," the final wizard provided, when Rose hadn't introduced him.

"Yeah, yeah," said Dean. "Glad your parents are—"

"Dean," said Sam, stopping him. "We need to talk."

Dean raised an eyebrow at him. "Sure. Can we get out of here alive first?"

Sam turned to the four youngsters. "Can my brother and I have a minute?"

Rose and Albus consulted each other silently, and Albus spoke. "We only really need a few minutes with you—"

"Please, I need to talk to my brother in private," Sam pushed.

Albus sighed. "Okay. We'll be back in five minutes." He pulled out a stick from his pocket and pointed it at the window, which locked itself. Then one-by-one, the cousins and the dude with the drunk parents filed out of the room, locking the door behind them.

**~o~**

Dean stood up and walked over to the window, looking at the drop from where he stood, while Sam remained seated on his bed, still processing the newfound information. He had the most insane idea, and was sure that Dean wouldn't agree, but there was only one thing that fit their situation.

"We can jump from here if we can just—" Dean was saying, but Sam interrupted him.

"Dean, listen."

_"What?"_ Dean asked his brother. "Let's get moving quickly."

"No, I just realised something," said Sam earnestly.

"That your period is due?" Dean asked him irately. "Can we get out of here and then talk, Sam?"

"No," Sam insisted. "Dean, _their names_!"

Dean frowned. "Yeah. So?"

"It's not just that." Sam licked his lips. "D-Did you notice the surnames?"

"_Yeah._ _So_?"

Sam didn't know how to voice his thoughts to Dean. "The wand and the magic seems real, Dean."

Dean sighed. "Get to the point, Sam."

Sam pressed his lips together, wondering how to say it. "There's – there's lore," he said simply.

"Of course there's lore, Sammy, Sabrina the Pregnant Witch just told us — they're freaking _witches_!"

"Yeah, but they're not like the ones we usually encounter," replied Sam.

"What do you mean?"

Sam sighed. "I've read about these people — more than once. About witches and wizards who live amongst us. Apparently, they have a world of their own — a government, medical services, schools… but they all stay hidden from us."

Dean narrowed his eyes at the information. "And they use wands?"

"That's what the lore says. These magical folk don't get their powers from selling their souls. It's in their blood."

"In their blood," Dean paused. "Like hereditary?"

"Not necessarily. Some of them are even born to normal people. And that Potter dude and his Weasley cousins?"

"What about them?"

"Well—" Sam licked his lips, wondering how to explain. "Do you remember the period between 1996 and 1998? The fogs, the monsters, the murders, the kidnappings and all the other weird stuff that happened? Like an Apocalypse?"

"I might remember that," said Dean.

"And then it all suddenly stopped, right? So from what I know, apparently, there was this guy — Harry Potter, who had a hand in stopping it. He was helped by two friends, a Weasley and a Granger."

There was silence, as Dean processed the information.

"You got this from lore?" he asked Sam disbelievingly.

"Yeah."

Dean's eyebrows were unnaturally high up his forehead. "Where the fuck did you find this stuff?"

"I read it," mumbled Sam. He remembered the strange book that he'd found in an equally strange library with a creepy librarian. He had thought the book was interesting enough to read with the all the strange lore that it held. But now that he thought of it, it was probably a library for these magical people too, and some unsuspecting witch or wizard must have kept it lying around, not expecting someone like Sam to read about their world. And then he found some not-so-strange books too, which said the same thing. The stories did explain a lot of things that no one could find a reason for, but Sam had never expected the stuff he'd read to be true.

Meanwhile, Dean had a strange expression on his face — one that could only be defined as a cross between awe and disgust. "Dude," he said. "This is probably the nerdiest thing you've ever done."

There was silence. Dean sighed. "Is this a freaking dream?"

"I doubt it."

"Awesome. So assuming all your lore is true… what do we do now?" He put his hands in his pockets and walked to the window again.

Sam stood up and walked to his brother. "Look, Dean, I know what I know. But honestly? I think we should call Cas. Ask him if these people are trustworthy."

Dean turned to his brother. "We can deal with this without interference from Heaven, Sam."

"Still. It wouldn't hurt to ask Cas, would it?"

Dean sniffed and shook his head. "I'm not about to _pray_ to Cas again, okay? It only makes him think that I trust him."

"But you _do_ trust him."

Dean raised an eyebrow. "Yeah, and you don't have demon blood in you."

Sam flinched at that, wondering how Dean knew, but then he realised that Dean was talking about Azazel infecting Sam. He sighed. "Come on, Dean, just do it this once. I could be wrong, and these people could kill us, for all we know."

"Then let them kill us," muttered Dean, going over to the bed and slumping on it, face in his hands.

_"What?"_

"I said," replied Dean, looking up at his brother, "Let them kill us if they have to."

Sam went and sat next to his brother. Looking at Dean, he spoke. "Look, if there's anything you want to say—"

"No, I don't."

"You can talk to me, Dean," Sam pressed him. "Please talk to me."

Dean opened his mouth to say something, and then shut it. "Fine," he said. "I'll call Cas." Turning his face skywards, Dean spoke again.

"If you're listening, Cas, we need some help. Yeah, _I'm_ praying. Would you mind coming here for a bit?"

Dean shut his eyes and opened them, almost as though he didn't expect Castiel to show. But Sam knew better. Castiel wouldn't ignore the prayer.

Sure enough, there was a heavy whooshing sound, as the angel appeared before the brothers.

"Hello, Dean."


	7. The Kids From Weirdo World

**A/N: **Hello!

Again, this was one of the more fun chapters to write. There's a teeeeeny bit of Ronmione in this (because Ronmione was my first OTP and I can't ever leave a chance to write them). And Dean Thomas? I put him here on purpose. :p

Thank you for the favs, follows and reviews! Please keep them coming, especially the reviews, because they really make my day!

* * *

**6. The Kids From Weirdo World**

Rose took a sharp breath at the pain in her back. She needed to lie down for a while, but she didn't want Albus or Scorpius to know, for they'd be smug about it. She knew she'd be telling Molly later on: Molly was always kinder. She'd understand.

What _Rose_ didn't understand, though, were the two brothers inside the room before her. They were a complicated pair. They were both enormous in size, but like Hagrid, they were not as scary as they seemed — Sam being the gentler one, even though he looked more alarming than his brother. Rose could make out that Sam looked up to, and cared about Dean, but that he was conscious about something. Evidently, he was keeping secrets from his brother. But Dean, apart from his overprotective gestures towards his brother, gave off a different vibe. His snarky attitude, the way he spoke, the distrust in his eyes and his general demeanour seemed a thin spread of putty over a huge, deep crack in his persona. Something big had just happened, and was still happening, and Dean was cracking … breaking open.

Albus checked his watch for the umpteenth time. "Two minutes," he muttered, pacing about. The four of them could hear the brothers discuss something.

"They know about us, though," said Rose. "Our world. And I don't think they like it."

"Yeah, they thought we hexed their bags or something," said Albus.

"No, I think they said _hex bags_," Scorpius replied to him. "Not that we'd hexed something. I don't know what that means, but maybe they have some wrong information about the way we work our magic. What did they mean by _their_ kind of problem, though? What do they do for a living?"

"I couldn't find out," Albus said to him. "I don't even know why they were investigating this particular case."

"Well, whatever it is, we just need a bit of information, right? We can let them go their own way after this."

There was more silence.

"They're hot, though," Molly said, breaking it.

Rose felt her lips break into a smile. "Molly, you'll never change, will you?"

Her cousin's eyes sparkled. "You think?"

"Five minutes," Albus said, glancing at his watch again. He came ahead and put his hand on the doorknob. "We're coming in!"

When he opened the door, though, he stopped short. Bewildered, Rose stepped in after him and stopped in her tracks too.

There was a third man in the room.

**~o~**

Albus frowned at the new arrival. He had a firm, unfeeling look on his face, and he was dressed in a tan trench coat, covering formal clothing with a wrongly done blue tie. And judging by the fact that he hadn't been there when Albus had locked the brothers a while ago, he had obviously just Apparated inside.

Just as Albus registered the new arrival, Sam walked forward to him. "This is Castiel," he said, gesturing to the man in the trench coat.

Albus nodded at the man, but said nothing. "So… we just need some answers."

"They are trustworthy," claimed Castiel's gravelly voice, and Albus frowned at Castiel,

"Excuse me?"

"They called me to find out if you were dangerous," replied Castiel.

"Cas—" Dean began, but Albus cut him short.

"And _who_ are you, exactly?"

"I'm an angel of the Lord."

Albus turned to Rose, who raised an eyebrow. He had expected Castiel to say that he was from the American Ministry. That he wanted identity proof or something. Not _this_.

Scorpius stepped up next to Albus. "That's great, mate. What department are you from?"

"We have garrisons, not departments."

"Are you an Auror?"

"I'm an—"

"He's serious about being an angel," Dean finally said, interrupting Castiel. "We wanted to know if you were dangerous."

Albus shook his head absently. "An angel."

"Yes."

"Like… a real angel? From Heaven?"

Dean shrugged.

Albus turned to Rose, who didn't seem to have anything to say. Scorpius too, was shocked. Finally, it was Molly who sputtered from the back. "So – so you're telling me that God exists, or something?"

"God exists," Castiel said blandly before Dean or Sam could open their mouths to reply to her. Albus didn't know what to think of this. He really hadn't given much thought to God or religion in his life. He just knew that Muggles really gave a lot of importance to these things. In the Wizarding world, however, they did celebrate Christmas and Easter, and acknowledge the existence of religion, but had no need to believe in a higher power with everything they could do and have.

"Um… cool, I suppose," Molly replied to Castiel after a moment of silence. "Strange…" she muttered, as an afterthought.

Castiel narrowed his eyes and tilted his head. "What is strange," he said, "is that you're time travellers."

"Say what?" Dean asked, his eyes widening. Sam went to stand next to his brother, surprise spreading over his features as he crossed his arms.

Castiel turned to the brothers. "You don't know? They don't belong to this year." He faced Albus again. "Which year are you from?"

"2029," Albus mumbled, still shocked at the kind of things that were happening. "We – we need some help from…" he pointed to the Winchesters.

"What is your issue?"

Dean cleared his throat. "Cas?" he said, "I think we'll take it from here. You say they're trustworthy, right?"

"They won't hurt you," Castiel replied to Dean. "They are human beings — as organic and perishable as you are — and they can be trusted as allies. They are just born with magical capabilities, and most of them don't indulge in dangerous magical practices. In fact, I suggest that you take their help in dealing with the Seals."

Dean cleared his throat again. "Cas."

Cas tore his eyes off the young witches and wizards and turned around to the Winchesters. "I'll see you, Dean." He nodded at Sam and with a whooshing sound, he was gone.

Albus stared at the empty space that had been Castiel just a while ago. He licked his lips. "I … I need to sit down."

**~o~**

They were just scared kids, Dean realised, as Albus, Scorpius, Rose and Molly filed into the room, one-by-one, and sat on the bed. Rose even looked pale, and Dean wondered if it was just the fact that she was shocked. Anyway, Dean thought, the kids were scared and harmless and they needed help, so it would be best to just try and help them.

"You don't look so good over there," Dean told the pregnant girl, and she looked up at him, shaking her head.

"I'm fine."

Dean didn't prod her. He barely knew her, and it was none of his business anyway. "So," he said, sitting on a chair. "Why did you come for us all the way from 2029?" He smiled ruefully. "I assume we're not alive twenty years from now?"

"We don't know," said Albus. "It was difficult to track anything about you. And I found out that you know about something we're dealing with, though I'm not sure _how_ you know."

"Depends on what you _think_ we know," Dean said to him. "We know about a lot of things you wouldn't expect us to be aware of."

"I…" Albus hesitated, looking at Rose. "Look, it's associated with our world. So it may seem…"

"Strange?" Sam asked him. "I think Cas being here was pretty self-explanatory about the kind of things we've dealt with."

Albus blinked. "So… you have met angels?"

"And demons too," said Dean. "And a lot of other things. But you guys are the first of _your_ kind that we've met."

"Don't be so sure," replied Albus. "We like to mingle with you folk. But you do seem to know about our world."

Dean pointed a thumb at Sam. "Geek brother there has read some lore about you."

"There's _lore_ about us?"

"Yes," Sam said. "I didn't believe it until now, though. I think I read about your family—" he gestured to Albus, Rose and Molly. "Potter and Weasley. There was a third name too. A girl."

"Hermione Granger?" Rose asked Sam. He nodded. "That's my mum," she said. "You read about Harry Potter, Ron Weasley and Hermione Granger. I'm Ron and Hermione's daughter. And," she gestured to Albus, "He's Harry Potter's son."

Dean let out a low whistle. "So we're dealing with Weirdo World celebrities here?"

"We're quite known in the Wizarding world, yes," said Rose. She looked at Sam. "What else did you read?"

"Just that your mom and dad and their friend averted an Apocalypse-like situation," said Sam. "And I read a lot about Albus's namesake. Some Dumbledore?"

"Well yes," Rose said, "But some of your information about us is faulty. We don't have anything called _hex bags_… and we haven't hexed anything of yours either."

"My bad," Dean told her. "You see, apparently, you guys get your magic in your blood."

"Yeah."

"But we also know of witches who sell their souls to demons to get their powers. They use these things called hex bags to work their magic."

"We don't need that," Rose. "We have wands that choose us." She reached for her pocket, removed the thin, long stick from earlier, and held it out to Dean. "Have a look."

Dean knew that she was getting him to trust her more by showing him the wand, but he had believed Castiel when the latter had said that the four kids were harmless. However, Dean liked that Rose was making her own effort to get him and Sam to trust her. Slowly, he took the wand and looked at it, before handing it over to Sam.

When Rose had got her wand back, she bit her lip. "So you know all about the paranormal," she said. "What do you do with all the knowledge? Isn't it better not to know?"

Dean frowned. "You don't know what we do?"

"I only know that you impersonate the Mug – FBI."

"We're hunters," said Dean. "We hunt down supernatural stuff. You know, freaky stuff."

Rose smiled. "So we must be 'supernatural' for you."

"Yeah, you are," Dean replied. "But we're not about to gank you. Your world is at peace with our world, and we don't want to ruin that. Plus, you are people, not creatures."

Rose raised her hands. "Flesh, blood, bones, enzymes and hormones. We get hungry, sleepy, sick, we laugh, cry and angst, and the same things that kill you can kill us. We're just like you, except that we can use wands."

"Yeah, I got that from Cas," said Dean. "Don't worry, I believe you."

"You really trust the angel too, don't you?" Rose asked him earnestly.

"Why, you gonna prove him wrong and kill me?"

"No…" she drifted away. "So, now that you know enough about us, will you help us?"

"You have to tell us _what_ you want us to help you with, sweetheart," said Dean.

She sighed. "Well, my brother needs your help."

"Okay, where is he?"

"Back in our year — 2029. He's sick. And you were just working on the very same case."

"Sick how?" Sam finally spoke, frowning.

"He had a stroke," Rose said to him. "He was perfectly healthy — and he suddenly had a stroke. We can't even find a cause for it."

"I'm sorry, but I don't think we've dealt with this—" Sam began, but Rose removed her wand and flicked it.

"Hey!" Dean said, as his brother's eyes unfocused, but Rose waved her wand at him too, and in a moment, everything was clear. SWH. Dave Woods. Three other victims. Stroke patients.

Dean widened his eyes at the sudden burst of information in his head, as he stared at the wand pointed at him. "What the hell?" he asked Rose. "What did you just do?"

"Your memories had been modified," Rose explained to the brothers. "We have a Statute of Secrecy, and you got into our hospital. Two Healers saw you, panicked, and called the Obliviators." She paused. "They're Ministry personnel, responsible for erasing memories."

"So that junkyard was actually your hospital?" Sam asked her.

"It is," nodded Rose. "SWH. Springfield Wizarding Hospital."

Dean raised an eyebrow. "And I wondered about the 'W'."

"So what did you find out?"

"Honestly?" Dean asked her. "I'm sorry to disappoint, but this is one case that we know squat about."

"Why did you go looking for the hospital then?"

"To find out more about the victims," shrugged Sam. "Nothing about their conditions made sense to us. We just knew that it wasn't normal. The hospital was the only thing common to them all."

"And…?"

"And there was nothing really wrong with the victims before they had the strokes. They'd been in the hospital for non-critical, unrelated conditions. And then they had their strokes and died thirteen months later. We wanted to question the doctors at the hospital, but that's impossible."

"They died a _year_ later?" Rose asked Sam, picking up the last bit of information.

"Yes," Sam replied to her. "Thirteen months — _exactly_. The victims experienced bleeding from ears, nose, gums and eyes for several months. And it escalated, so that they eventually died of exsanguination."

"But… that doesn't make sense. Did they have repeated cardiac arrests?"

"They did," said Sam. "A victim's wife told us that the cardiac arrests were a side-effect to the anti-paralysis medication. And that's all we know, really."

Rose sighed. "So… you really don't know much. And…" she turned to Scorpius. "Hugo is on the potion, isn't he?"

Scorpius nodded, and Rose sighed. "How do we even inform the others about this now?" There was silence. She looked at Sam. "Anything else?"

"Nothing," said Sam apologetically. "I'm sorry."

"No, no…" Rose looked on the verge of tears. "It's okay. S'pose we'll have to do this ourselves after all… _if_ we get back to our year… with Hugo surviving the cardiac arrests…"

Dean felt sorry for the girl. She had come all this way in that condition of hers just to help her brother, and it struck Dean too close to home. "Why can't you get back?" he asked Rose, noticing the other thing that she'd said.

"Our Time-Turner is broken," said Rose. "It was supposed to be a very short journey… and now we're here and you two don't know anything…" A tear actually slid down her cheek, and Albus put an arm around her.

"Hey," said Sam, coming forward, sympathy evident in his eyes. "Don't worry. We'll call Cas and he'll zap you back to your year, okay?" Dean smiled at the comforting gesture. Sam would always remain Sam. He looked at Dean and shrugged.

Dean honestly didn't want to pray to Castiel again. Not twice in one day, at least, but he felt sorry for the kids. Sighing, the elder Winchester turned his face skywards and shut his eyes.

"Cas, we need you back here."

A minute later, the angel appeared before Dean and Sam. "What happened?"

Dean gestured to the kids. "Can you take them back to their year?"

"I can. Is your work done?"

"Yes, but they're apparently stuck here. Just take them back, will you?"

Castiel turned to the kids. "How did you get here?"

"Time-Turner," Rose said to him. "It broke."

"Let me see," said Castiel, squinting into the distance. He frowned a moment later, tilting his head. "Why are all of you… different?"

"_You'll_ have to tell us, mate," Albus replied. "What is it about us that seems different to you?"

Castiel was still frowning. "I can't tell right now. I'll have to find out, and I need one of you to volunteer for that," he said earnestly.

Scorpius stood up before anyone else could offer, speaking for the first time in a while. "You can use me… for whatever it is that you're so doubtful about."

Castiel approached him, rolling back his sleeve as he did so. "Sit down. This is going to be unpleasant."

Scorpius did as the angel told him, and shut his eyes as Castiel's hand penetrated his abdomen. The angel's expressions were ever-stoic as the younger man's jaw clenched, his teeth grinding against the pain. Finally, Castiel's hand was out of Scorpius. "Did you not transport yourselves entirely to the past?" he asked the kid.

"Why?" Scorpius panted. "I don't think I'm missing a limb or anything."

"You misunderstand me," said Castiel. "You are not whole. I suspect that none of you is. How did you get here?"

"Oh," Molly replied to him this time. "We… actually, this is hard to explain… we kinda have two 'selves'. So…"

"So?"

"Back in 2029 right now, we are in a coma," she finished.

Castiel turned to Dean, his expression unchanged. "I can't help them."

"Come on, dude—"

"No, Dean, I wish I could help them, but I can't. The way they have travelled is complicated," he looked again at Molly. "You say you have somehow duplicated yourselves?"

"Yeah…" Molly began. Rose looked even more pale, and Dean noticed Scorpius cast a glance at her in worry, and then at her baby bump. Molly spoke again. "We have duplicated ourselves, in a way, but our future selves, like I said, aren't functional. Our souls have travelled with us."

"If I transport you back the way you are," said Castiel, "There will be two of you in the future, and it will not be pleasant. Especially as your soulless bodies will eventually die. You will never be whole again."

"But we feel fine right now," said Molly.

"You will be fine temporarily," Castiel replied to her. "It won't affect you now, or even for the next year. But then it will become unpleasant. You will get weak. It will be painful, and you will live half an existence."

The kids took a minute to process Castiel's information and Dean looked at his brother, wondering how powerful these wizard people were. If they could actually travel in time on their own accord, and create magic like they had earlier that day, they could be really helpful in stopping Lilith. However, they were kids, and Dean wasn't about to ask them to participate in what he and Sam were doing.

Molly let out a final sigh. "So… you'd advise us not to leave with you?"

"You should fix your device, and go back the way you came."

"Okay," Molly replied, dejected.

Just then, Rose spoke up in a low voice. "Actually, Castiel, you can still help us in a way."

**~o~**

**_2029_**

As Hugo sighed and tossed about his non-paralytic limbs on his bed, he had no idea about the four people lying in the room next to his, seemingly in a deep slumber. He really didn't have much idea about anything, really, and he didn't really hear the sound of large wings as a man in a trench coat appeared next to his bed, and put two fingers to Hugo's forehead.

Castiel waited for the red headed boy to wake up, but nothing happened. The boy just tossed about, muttering something, and he continued to jerk his left side, the right side still unmoving.

The angel sighed. He had known, somewhere in his mind, that perhaps his healing capabilities wouldn't work on the boy. He would have to convey the bad news to Rose Weasley. However, he had some other work to do before reporting back to her.

**~o~**

Hermione shifted to her side, watching Ron snore peacefully before shutting her eyes. She couldn't believe that she and Ron were facing it all again. The very same thing with Hugo's sickness. However, there was one improvement: they weren't fighting like the last time.

After their particularly bad experience with Hugo's leukaemia, Hermione and Ron had stopped fighting while their children were sick. They still bickered and fought at other times, but Rose or Hugo being sick only called for being closer to each other, and not fighting. There was no need for more stress over what was already happening.

Ron moaned and put an arm around Hermione unconsciously, pulling her closer to himself. Hermione opened her eyes and smiled at her husband, tracing a finger on his jaw as he continued to snore. She curved an arm around his waist and snuggled closer, shutting her eyes again and falling into a deep slumber this time.

She dreamt about Hogwarts and the good times there. Her memories travelled back to some of the classes where she, Ron and Harry had sat on the seats at the back, Hermione taking notes and hissing at her best friends to pay attention, while they gave her exasperated glances and continued to play hangman. She was reliving one such moment in Transfiguration class and McGonagall was writing on the blackboard, when Hermione noticed something odd.

There was a strange man standing at the door to the classroom. He was tall, with piercing blue eyes and dark hair. He wore a tan trench coat. But the strangest thing was that he was looking right at Hermione, and no one else seemed to even notice him. He approached her slowly, and sat down beside Dean, who continued talking to Seamus, unperturbed by the big man sitting beside him. Ron and Harry, who were sitting beside Hermione, continued playing hangman without being bothered.

Hermione frowned at the strange man. _"Who are you?"_

_"My name is Castiel,"_ he replied in a deep, gravelly voice, over the sound of Dean persuading Seamus to ask Lavender to the Yule Ball. _"And your daughter looks remarkably like your husband."_

Hermione glanced at Ron, and back at Castiel. _"What do you want? And how do you know Rose?"_

_"I have been sent here—"_

_Castiel was interrupted by Seamus's loud whisper, "But Dean…"_

_He turned his head to Dean, tilting it sideways briefly, and then looked back at Hermione. "I've been sent here by Rose to inform you that you are to take care of her, Molly, Scorpius and Albus,"_ he said. _"Keep doing it for as long as you have to. And you have to discontinue the anti-paralytic medication for your son. They are responsible for his cardiac arrests."_

_"Wait. Rose told you this? How? Where is she? What's wrong with my nephew, niece and daughter?"_ Hermione asked him, but with a whooshing sound, Castiel was gone.

Back in Ron's arms, Hermione woke up with a start.

**~o~**

**_2009_**

"So I suppose this is goodbye," said Rose, as Sam and Dean stood with Albus, who was about to Side-Along Apparate them to their car. She smiled at the brothers. "Thanks for your help." Castiel had come back and informed her that he hadn't been able to do anything about Hugo's condition, but at least Rose's mother was informed of the state that Rose and the others were in. That was a start, and Rose could try and help her brother from where she was.

"Hey, no problem," said Dean. "And it wasn't us anyway. It's Cas who is really helping you."

Rose nodded. "You _prayed_ to him for us, didn't you? Even though you hate doing it? Thanks for that."

Dean blinked. "Where did you get that from?"

"I'm a psychiatric Healer."

Sam smirked at his brother as Dean muttered to himself. "I'll be damned. So they call doctors 'Healers' in your world?"

"They do."

Dean chuckled. "Cute. Anyway, we gotta go." He handed Rose a slip of paper. "If you think we can help again, give us a call. And preferably don't tie us to bedposts the next time. I don't know about Sam's wild fantasies—" Sam shot his brother a look of annoyed disapproval, as Dean ignored him and continued, "— but I don't enjoy restrictive sex."

Rose laughed. "Sure, thanks."

Molly and Scorpius got up from their places on the bed as they approached the brothers, and thanked them too. They waved a final goodbye while Albus went and stood between them, and they clutched onto his arms as he Disapparated with a _crack_.

Rose looked at the empty space that had previously been occupied by the brothers and went and sat on the bed next to Molly. "We have to find a way to help Hugo from here," she said.

"On our own?" Molly asked her. "Do you even know how and where to start?"

"No…" said Rose. "But I'll figure it out."

"You should have asked for their help. They deal with this stuff, don't they?"

"They have problems of their own, Molly," Rose replied to her cousin.

"Really?"

Rose raised an eyebrow at her. "You couldn't tell? You don't need to be a Healer to figure out that something's wrong there."

"I was trying to figure out who was prettier," said Molly honestly.

Rose rolled her eyes at her. "Molly—"

"I settled on Dean," her cousin replied, ignoring her. "Definitely sexier. But Sam is cute."

_"Molly!"_

"I honestly didn't think anything was wrong," said Scorpius, interrupting Rose and Molly. "Except for that Castiel bloke. He was everything that wasn't right."

"He says he's an angel," said Rose pensively.

"And you believe that?" Scorpius asked her. "Angels? _God?_"

Rose turned to the man. "I do believe that Castiel was an angel because he sure wasn't a wizard. And I could _hear_ his wings whoosh every time he… flew. He's also quite powerful — more than all of us. As for God…" She shrugged. "I always thought that was a Muggle thing and I really don't want to think about it any further."

"You're right," said Molly. "It freaks me out." She walked to the window and looked outside. "It's dark out. Do you want to grab dinner?"

"Sure," Rose replied to her. "Let Al come back."

At that moment, Albus appeared beside Molly with a crack. "Dinner?" he asked the others, without preamble, as his stomach let out a low grumble.

"That's what we were discussing," said Molly. "Come on."

Rose let out a slight gasp as another bout of pain hit her back, and she got up from the bed, placing her hands on her back once again, and gaining control of her balance. She felt a hand on the base of her neck as she did so.

"All right?" Scorpius asked her.

Rose nodded and pushed his hand away. She wanted to say something, but she wasn't in a mood to be mean to him right now, and she just wanted to eat, and crash into her own bed. As the thought crossed her mind, another bout of pain shot up her back, and the gasp was very audible this time.

"Rosie?" Molly asked worriedly, turning to her cousin.

"I'm fine," Rose sighed.

Molly came to Rose's side and put an arm around her. "Okay," she said softly. She paused. "It's been a long day. How about we get some takeaway for you? You can nap for a while."

"I'm not ill."

"I know you aren't, Rosie," said Molly reasonably. "But you have stressed enough. Rest a little for now, okay? For me."

Rose looked at her cousin and nodded. "Okay." Molly smiled at her and slowly led her to their room. She then helped the latter lay down on the bed. "Do you want me to stay?"

"No, go ahead."

"Okay. What would you like to eat?"

"Just a sandwich, and some pumpkin juice would be good."

"Is orange juice okay, if we don't find a wizard eatery?"

"Good enough," Rose sighed. Her eyes were already beginning to shut from the exhaustion.

"Okay," said Molly quietly. Rose could see Albus and Scorpius waiting at the door, as Molly helped Rose into the blanket, and into a comfortable position. By the time Molly had left her side and shut the door behind her, Rose was fast asleep.

**~o~**

"Dinner and rest?" Dean asked Sam as he steered the Impala down an empty road. "It's been a long day, I'm tired, and I know you are too. We can sleep in the car and leave town first thing in the morning."

Sam shrugged at his brother. "Sure."

There was more silence, and Sam watched his brother drive about, looking for a diner, as various thoughts ran through his mind. He remembered what Dean had said about the kids, back in the hotel room.

_"Then let them kill us. Let them kill us if they have to."_

This wasn't like Dean — not unless he was tired — and not physically tired. Mentally tired. This wasn't Dean unless he felt burdened, and Sam knew that there was more to what they had spoken about earlier that day. The younger Winchester sighed. He and Dean needed to talk. _Now._

"Dean—"

"I'm fine, Sam."

"Please don't say that. You're clearly not fine."

"Whatever."

"Dean, please—"

"Let it go, would you, Sam?"

Sam sighed again, and opened his mouth to say something else, when Dean's phone rang. The older Winchester squinted at the name on the display. "It's Bobby," he said, before putting the phone to his ear, and tilting his head, so he was holding the phone against his shoulder, while both his hands were still on the wheel.

"Hey, Bobby. Hmm?"

Sam watched his brother, picking up only on one side of the conversation, wondering simultaneously as to how to wheedle a confession from his brother. Dean wasn't about to talk easy, but Sam would make him talk. That was for sure.

"Okay, okay, what?" Dean was saying, his brows contracting together in a frown. "Yeah," he said. "No… we're here, you wouldn't believe what happened. Oh?"

Sam watched on, as Dean's eyes widened. "Are you serious?" He asked Bobby. He paused. "Like, _exploded_? Jeez." Slowly, Dean brought the car to a halt in front of a decent-looking diner as he took the phone in his hand. "Just mail us the info, will you?" he said. "Yeah, we'll check it out. Sure. Bye."

Dean cancelled the call and turned to Sam. "What happened?" Sam asked his elder brother.

Dean licked his lips. "We're going back to the kids from Weirdo World."

"Why?"

"Turns out," Dean replied, opening his door, "this town doesn't just have a problem with killer strokes. We can't just ignore this. We need to stay and help."


	8. Casus Belli

**A/N:** Hey guys, here's the next one. Hope you enjoy it!

Also, a reviewer asked me a very valid question — if Rose and Hugo and the others should not be under quarantine in this situation that they're in. I'll say that they won't, because Hugo, and the other victims still have has strokes, and nothing infectious is suspected. Strokes aren't communicable, so yes, while the Healers should be bewildered at the sudden rise in stroke cases, there won't be quarantine.

Please review! Silence kills me!

* * *

**7. Casus Belli**

**_2029_**

"Hermione, what's wrong?"

Hermione dressed herself at top speed as Ron sat on their bed, his hair dishevelled and his eyes wide. "What happened?"

"I told you, Ron," she replied. "We have to get to the hospital!"

"Why?"

"Rose…" Hermione bit her lip. She didn't know whether to believe the man from her dream or not. "I don't know, Ron, it's just this funny feeling."

"About Rose?"

"And Al. And Molly."

Ron got off the bed and came to her, placing a hand on her shoulder. "It was just a nightmare. If anything was wrong with Rose, we'd know, Hermione."

'

"How can you say that?" Hermione asked him. Tears filled her eyes. "We're already losing Hugo, Ron. If anything happens to—"

"Hey, hey," he said, interrupting her, and pulling her into a hug. "Don't say that." He let her go and looked into her eyes. "You know what, since you think we should go, check on Rose, we probably should." He went over to his wardrobe and started to pull out his own clothes. "Let's go to the hospital and make sure she's okay."

**~o~**

**_2009_**

"We'd like a room," Sam said to the receptionist at the inn, pushing forward his credit card as Dean unloaded their duffels from the Impala. "Two beds," he added, before he could be questioned further. "And our friends are over at rooms two-oh-nine and two-ten, so can we have something close to them?"

The man at the desk nodded, swiped the card and typed something into his computer as he handed over the keys and credit card transcript to Sam. "Room two-oh-eight," he said. "Have a pleasant stay."

"Thank you," said Sam, signing the transcript and going over to Dean, taking his own duffel as they got into the elevator. They walked past the youngsters' rooms to their own, settling their bags there when they got in. Dean went ahead and made the salt lines, while Sam unpacked some of his clothes and got the water running for a warm bath.

"So," he said, turning to his brother. "You going to tell me why we didn't leave?"

"I told you, Sam, it's a case, and we can't ignore it."

"It was always a case, Dean. You seemed perfectly okay with leaving it to those people two hours ago."

"Well," Dean replied, turning to his brother. "The strokes aren't the only problems in this town."

"What else?"

Dean licked his lips. "Bobby got word about another victim here. She was in a hospital, but there's no information about the name of said hospital."

"And she died of a stroke?"

"No, a migraine."

Before Sam could raise his eyebrow, Dean explained it to him. "Her head exploded, Sammy, her head fucking _exploded_. There are too many victims and they're all dying too fast. We have to take this on, Weirdo World or not."

**~o~**

"Rosie?"

Rose groaned and opened her eyes as she felt Molly's hand on her shoulder. She took a moment to process and remember where she was. 2009. America. Right. Sighing, Rose sat up with Molly's help. "Hey, Molly."

"How do you feel?"

"I'm fine," Rose replied to her. "Tired. Back hurts a little, but I got my potions along."

"Okay, then just eat up, and you can go right back to sleep," Molly said to her, handing her a Styrofoam container and a juice box. "We could only find a Muggle diner to eat in, so I got you some orange juice," she explained.

"No problem," Rose replied, piercing the juice box with the straw and opening the container. Her stomach growled in hunger when she saw the sandwich inside it. Grabbing it, she took a bite. "Thanks."

"So how long?"

"What?"

"How long has your back been hurting?"

"Not long," Rose lied to her cousin. "I just didn't say anything in front of Scorpius, because I wouldn't hear the end of it," she said. "But really, just for a few minutes before I could lie down."

Molly sighed. "You know that sacrificing your own wellbeing isn't going to help Hugo, right?"

Rose nodded. "And I'm not doing that."

"You know what's best for you, Rose."

There was silence, as Rose bit into her sandwich, wincing slightly at the pain that shot up her back. Molly noticed it. "Eat up, take your medicines and lie down. I'll give you a massage," she offered.

"It's not necessary," Rose replied hesitantly. "I'm not new to these pains."

There was more silence. Rose finished her dinner pretty soon, sipping up the orange juice thirstily, before taking her potions. She lay down on the bed, on her back, shutting her eyes against the pain as Molly sat down next to her. "Should I—?"

"I'm okay," Rose lied. She opened her eyes. "Go take a nap. You must be exhausted too."

"Are you sure?"

"Yeah."

Molly stood up. "Okay, then, I'll just have a word with Al."

"Sure."

Rose closed her eyes as the door shut behind Molly. The ache in her back was just getting worse. She reckoned it was all the stress, but she wished she had something stronger to help her sleep. Unfortunately, she was on the strongest pain medication possible. She heard hushed voices outside in the corridor a few minutes later and the door opened again.

Rose kept her eyes shut, not wanting Molly to think that she was having trouble sleeping. She heard movement in the room, and suddenly, someone was tapping her arm. "Rose?"

It was Scorpius. "Can we talk tomorrow?" Rose asked him groggily. "I'm not in the mood for—"

"I need you to lie down on the floor," he said, interrupting her.

"What?"

Scorpius pointed to the floor, where he had put two pillows. "It will be better than doing it on the bed," he said.

Rose realised what this was about. "I don't need a massage," she told him.

"Will you quit being a numpty and listen to me?" he asked her irately. "I can help you."

Rose clenched her jaw at him, contemplating a comeback. However, another twang of pain bothered her, and she decided to let Scorpius be happy for once. "Fine."

"You need to get your shirt off," he told her.

Rose bit back a retort at that. He had seen her naked loads of times anyway. "_Fine_," she repeated, unbuttoning her shirt. "But I'm not taking off the bra."

"I didn't ask you to." She got off the bed and lay down on her side as Scorpius had instructed her to. He arranged the pillows to support her belly and back, and another one for her head and neck. He pulled her bottom leg straight and let the other one remain bent, as he placed a pillow between them. At that moment, Rose hated to admit it, but she was very comfortable.

"Are you good?" Scorpius asked her.

Rose nodded.

"Okay," he said, and Rose tried not to flinch as his fingers touched the nape of her neck. "I'm going to be gentle. Tell me if you want me to put in some more force, okay?" His fingers kneaded through her skin, and Rose almost sighed in relief.

"A little harder," she whispered, feeling the familiar fingers soothe her pain. She shut her eyes, remembering the times when the same fingers had stroked her… tantalised her. She could remember Scorpius teasing her, drawing circles as she bit her lip against shrieking in pleasure … her fingernails leaving indentations in his back. And then his lips on her neck, to her shoulders…

Scorpius unclasped Rose's bra, peeling it away from her back and pressing firm fingers on the area. She sighed, remembering the fingers from the times she'd get home depressed from some case at work, only for Scorpius to always be there to help relieve the tension. Molly crouched down and put a towel on Rose to cover her front, interrupting her thoughts.

"Harder?" Scorpius asked Rose, his fingers still working magic. _The fingers that clutched on to the folds of her robes when they kissed…_

"No, it's fine," Rose said to him as he slowly made his way down to her hips. _The hands that placed themselves on her waist, claiming her, when they would go for a long walk._

Rose bit the inside of her cheek and blinked several times to keep herself from crying. She and Scorpius — they had been so good together. So content. Why did Scorpius have to ruin it all?

"Rosie, what happened?" a voice asked, and Rose noticed Molly's concerned face looming close to hers. "Where else does it hurt?"

"It doesn't hurt," said Rose, realising that a tear had fallen out of the corner of her eye. "I'm fine." She'd said that a lot in the recent hours, she realised. Beside her, Scorpius sighed.

"I know what you're thinking about."

"No, you don't."

"Rose…" Scorpius trailed away, removing his fingers from her back and moving over to face her. "I miss you too. A lot."

"Can we not talk about this right now, Scorpius?" Rose pleaded with him.

"Listen to me—"

"Look, I will, okay?" Rose said. "But please — I'm aching and half-naked. Don't bring this on me just now."

"So you're willing to consider?" Scorpius asked, the happiness and ecstasy evident in his voice.

"Well, if you keep going on about it now, I won't," Rose said to him. In truth, she wasn't ready to consider. She couldn't go through all that again. But at the moment, this seemed to be the only way to keep Scorpius shut. Happy enough with her response, Scorpius got back to massaging her back.

Rose fell asleep in the middle of Scorpius's massage, not protesting after that when he lifted her onto her bed and tucked her in. She also didn't notice Molly's smile as she watched the youngest Malfoy march out of the room, almost dancing with joy at the false hopes he'd just received.

**~o~**

_Tap. Tap. Tap._

Scorpius sat up on his bed with a start, the knocking bringing back terrible memories to him.

_Tap tap tap._

_"It's that fucking owl again, Rose."_

That fucking owl. Those fucking letters from Teddy Lupin. They had been the cause of the worst mistake ever, on Scorpius's part. He had suspected Rose of cheating on him.

_Tap. Tap. Tap._

"Dean, stop knocking," said a muffled voice from outside. "They're probably asleep."

"It's eight o'clock, Sam."

"They're from a different time zone, remember?"

Scorpius listened to the voices outside the door, his mind taking a moment to inform him that this wasn't an owl. It was the Winchester brothers from yesterday. What did they want?

"A minute," he called out, before the Winchesters could go away, getting off from the bed and rubbing his eyes with the heel of his hands. Potter was still fast asleep on the other bed as Scorpius grabbed his wand from the little study desk, and waved it at the door.

The Winchesters stood outside, mouths slightly agape at the self-acting door. Dean looked impressed. "Dude. That was freaking awesome!"

Scorpius smiled at him sleepily. "Come in. Sorry, we're all very tired."

"No problem," Dean replied to him as he entered the room, Sam shutting the door behind him.

"Actually, _we're_ sorry to disturb you," said Sam

"No, it's okay," Scorpius said to him. He paused. "Didn't you say you were leaving town?" he asked the elder brother in a low voice, glancing at Potter.

"We almost did," said Dean. "But something else happened."

"What?"

"Well, we want to discuss it with all of you," Sam replied to him. "How quickly can you guys gather for breakfast?"

"I'll get Potter awake," said Scorpius, gesturing to his roommate. "He can get his cousins. Although Rose wasn't particularly well last night, so she might not come."

"Yeah, not the most genius idea getting a pregnant chick along, eh?" Dean asked Scorpius.

"She wasn't supposed to come," Scorpius sighed. "It was a mistake. Anyway. We'll swing by your hotel as soon as everyone is awake and ready. Where are you staying?"

"In the next room," Sam shrugged. "We got news on the case last night, and we thought we'd stay close by, so we could include you."

"Good thinking."

The brothers stood up from their places and headed to the door. "Check in with us once they're awake, will you, Scorp… Scor…?" Dean scrunched his nose, while his lips formed a spectacular pout. "What does everyone call you?"

"Scorpius. You can call me 'Malfoy', if you want."

"Scorpo, then," Dean cracked him a smile. "Anyone ever call you that?"

"No," he frowned, "And no one should." He shut the door behind the Winchesters, with a sneaky feeling that it was going to stick anyway.

**~o~**

"We should go get some breakfast," Dean said to Sam as he shut the door behind him when they'd entered their room after talking to Scorpius.

"But you just said—"

"For them too," Dean replied. "We'll bring it up to the inn."

Sam raised his eyebrows at his brother. "You seem to have taken to them, considering we met them just yesterday, and also that you hate witches."

"Well, like you said, they're different from the ones we stop. Cas said they're trustworthy. They're human, and not evil," said Dean. "And…" he hesitated, "That Rose chick… she came all the way here just for her brother, Sam. She looks pretty far along too. It can't be easy."

Sam nodded. He had realised what this was about when Dean had insisted on staying back last night. Dean had been looking for an excuse to have to stay back and solve this case all along.

"I mean," Dean continued, "If I was in her place—" he seemed embarrassed, as though he wasn't supposed to say it out loud. "Well, we could at least help her," he concluded, trying to salvage it.

"Dean—" Sam sighed. He licked his lips. "Thanks, man."

There was moment of awkward silence as both the Winchesters looked in different directions. "Plus," Dean spoke, breaking it, "That Molly girl is hot."

Sam chuckled. "Trying to get a witchy lay, are we?"

"_Trying_?" Dean asked him. "Don't insult me, Sammy, I don't have to _try_."

"Yeah, right," snorted Sam. "You're disgusting, you know? We'll probably be old enough to be her parents in 2029."

"But she's not a kid right now, is she?" Dean picked up the keys of his Impala. "It's all that matters. Now let's go get some breakfast."

**~o~**

"Killer migraine?" Rose asked Dean in surprise as she took a bite of her pancake.

"Yep," Dean replied. "And the person who told us — he couldn't find any info on the hospital. So guess which one it must be."

"SWH," Rose whispered. "So…" she bit her lip. "You deal with such things all the time? Mysterious illnesses?"

"Not all the time. Freaky incidents come in varieties," replied Dean. "But we have dealt with suspicious illnesses before. It generally has something to do with a spirit."

"A ghost."

"Yep."

"But…" Rose was bewildered. "I don't think ghosts would do that. They like to mind their own business, don't they?"

"Uh… no, they don't," said Dean. "Not if they go vengeful."

"The ghosts in our school were friendly," Scorpius supplied. "Even the poltergeist there — he created mischief, but he never really harmed anyone."

Dean raised his eyebrow. "A _harmless_ poltergeist? You kidding me, Scorpo?"

"Scorpius."

Dean ignored him. "You had ghosts and poltergeists in your school? What kind of a school was that?"

"Just one poltergeist," Albus replied to him. "It is a school for wizards. Hogwarts."

"Oh, I read about that," Sam supplied. "Wasn't that where the battle took place? Where your parents fought?"

"Battle of Hogwarts, yeah," Albus said.

Dean shook his head at his brother. "Nerd."

"So…" Rose finished her pancake. "How do we find out which ghost there is doing it? Because I'm sure there will be many ghosts inside such a big hospital."

"We read up on any violent deaths in the hospital," said Dean. "Can you dig up info on that?"

"We… could check out a library," shrugged Rose. "We don't have computers, unlike you Muggles."

"Mug-_what_?"

"Muggles," she repeated. "Non-magical people."

"That makes us sound… stupid," Dean concluded.

Rose looked into his eyes. "You really don't think we're evil."

He shrugged, giving her a head tilt and a pout to match it. "Cas wouldn't lie to us. He needs us alive."

"So you trust him too," Rose said, nodding interestedly. "And I get the feeling that you're not very quick to trust people. You take your time."

Dean spread out his arms. "Hard to do that when you live my life, sweetheart."

They ate quietly. Rose still wondered why the Winchesters had come back to help them, but she decided not to ask Dean, because she didn't think he'd tell her anyway. But she had noticed something about the brothers. Dean gave off a very obvious protective vibe when he was around Sam. He probably considered it his responsibility to keep Sam safe from everything, even though Sam was old enough to protect himself. In Rose's estimation, Sam was at least twenty-five or twenty-six. And Dean was about thirty, if she had guessed right. So both of them were old enough to take care of themselves. Normally, they wouldn't even be around each other so much — they'd just be living their own lives. But what was up with these two? She wondered what had brought on this bond between Sam and Dean.

"Look," Sam said, "We'll help you, okay? But we're in the middle of tackling something ourselves, so if this takes longer than just a few days, you might be by yourselves on the case for a while." Dean gave him a look, and he shrugged. "It's the truth."

"I got the idea that you had bigger things to deal with," said Rose, looking at the brothers. "And really, I appreciate all the help you've given us until now, and the fact that you're ready to help for as long as you can." She paused. "But even if we finish the case here, we're going to be stuck for a while, until Molly figures how to get us back. So… if there's any way we can help you in return…"

"Not unless you can kill demons," said Sam. "And really, you shouldn't be stressing—"

Rose frowned at him. "Honestly? Even from people I met twelve hours ago? I'm _pregnant_, not _handicapped_! And I could help with your research, you know. That angel, Castiel, he said something about Seals — he said we could help."

"Cas is an ass," replied Dean wisely. "I think it's best you stay out of it. You guys are just kids."

Rose raised an eyebrow. "I'm twenty-three. I became an adult six years ago. Molly here is about as old as Sam. We're hardly _kids_."

"It's still best that you stay out," he replied. "Because if you get sucked in…" he bit his lip, "You might not see home again."

There was silence. Rose pressed her lips together. "That bad?"

"Apocalypse bad," Dean said to her frankly. "Don't get into it."

She sighed. "Dean, you can't decide these things for others sometimes — avoiding something isn't going to keep us safe forever."

"Yes, it can. You get involved and probably end up dead, or you stay out of it and get back to your brother," Dean insisted. "Listen to me."

"But she's right," Albus spoke up suddenly. "If this is the _Apocalypse_ and if there's anything we can do…"

"You really can't," Dean said to him. "And it isn't the Apocalypse _yet_. It's just a situation that might lead to one."

"We can still help you, learn your ways."

Dean took a deep breath. "Tell you what? Let's finish this case of yours and save your cousin. We can talk about it after that."

"Yeah, we will," said Molly. Sam and Dean looked surprised at how determined Rose, Albus and Molly seemed to be, to help them fight. "Because," she said, "An Apocalypse… would mean that the whole world is in danger. Our families too."

"If they're alive in the year you came from—"

"It's possible that they're alive because of something we did," Molly asserted. "If we do nothing, all that could be reversed. You get how time works, right?"

"Hey…" Sam began. "There's no Apocalypse yet. So you guys need to calm down. Let's work this case first, and we'll talk about the Seals later."

"Deal," said Scorpius quietly, and Dean looked at him in surprise.

"Thought you had more sense than your friends when you sat quiet there," said Dean. "Look," he sighed. "You gotta understand. This job ain't easy. We barely know you, and we don't want to pull you into it."

Scorpius finished his breakfast and put his Styrofoam container aside. "We _know_ it isn't easy. But we're all professionals in our fields. We are capable. We can help. Believe me. In fact—" He gestured to Sam. "Pull up your sleeves and show me your wrists."

Bewildered, Sam did as he was asked. When he pulled back his sleeves, Rose noticed two long slashes along them, sewn up with Muggle sutures. She shuddered. She could make out that Sam was deeper than he looked, and more troubled than he seemed, but she hadn't taken Sam for the suicidal kind.

"I wasn't trying to kill myself, if that's what you're thinking," Sam explained, before anyone else could talk. "Ghouls attacked me. How did you know?" he asked Scorpius.

"I couldn't help but notice it while I was tying up your wrists yesterday," Scorpius replied.

Dean grinned at his brother. "Look at that! Scorpo tied you up, Sammy. Sexy!"

Scorpius frowned at the elder Winchester, pulling out his wand. "Hold still." He held Sam's wrist and pointed his wand at the wound, speaking an incantation as he moved it along the line of the slash.

Sam winced as the sutures jumped off his wound, and the skin knit itself neatly, concealing the slashes. Scorpius took the other wrist and worked on it too, smoothly sealing both of Sam's injuries as he did so. He turned to Rose. "Did you bring along dittany?"

"I might have," she said.

"Give it to him later, will you? It will remove the scarring."

Sam and Dean, in the meantime, were staring at Sam's newly-mended wrists. "T-Thank you!" Sam mumbled. "That was—"

"Awesome," Dean finished for his brother.

"Still think we're not capable?" Scorpius asked them, pocketing his wand.

"You're – you're more than capable," said Sam, still surprised. "We didn't expect…"

"Well, we'd like to help you, then," said Scorpius. "If we actually have to stay that long, we'd like to be of some use. Rose is very intelligent — she was at the top of our class. She can help you research. And Potter and Weasley there are not bad themselves."

"Yeah, Molly invents stuff," Rose told the brothers. "She's even better than I am. Al works for our Ministry, and knows a lot of useful things regarding magic tracing and transport."

Dean pressed his lips together. "Look, we don't doubt you're good, okay? Just…"

"Let's solve the case first," said Sam. "Then we can discuss this. Once we find the spirit and take it out, your brother should be fine too. You'll be at ease then. You can think again and tell us at that time."

"You really should take up on our offer, you know," said Molly. "Because I believe we can really help. And—" she looked straight at Dean and grinned cheekily. "We can be around each other a lot more."

He raised his eyebrows and smiled, but didn't say anything. Rose, in the meantime, looked back at her breakfast, hoping Molly would put off her flirting for this once. She had a feeling that Dean was far from Molly's 'type'.

**~o~**

Auror Cole Blake almost fell off his chair when he saw the familiar figure walk into his office. He could barely believe his eyes. Could this be who he thought it was?

It had been a normal day at work for Blake. A Dark wizard was killing Muggles in Chicago and Blake had sent his people to tackle them. Then there was a Death Eater sighting at Minnesota. Blake had already sent along a Floo message to Harry Potter. And right now, it seemed that Mr Potter was responding to his message… by personally entering the Auror Headquarters.

Yes, Mr Potter. Messy black hair, green eyes and those signature glasses with the scar on his forehead, almost concealed by his fringe. He had been made an Auror at seventeen, and just two years ago, Potter took over the Auror department at the British Ministry of Magic. Until now, Blake had never personally met the man. They had spoken, yes, but Potter rarely made personal visits to America. He didn't work more than he needed too, and was known as a family person who enjoyed spending time with his wife, three children and Ron Weasley's family. Blake respected the man immensely — truth be told, he probably even harboured a small crush on Potter.

Currently, Blake rubbed his eyes with his knuckles as Potter halted outside his office and knocked. The man seemed a little fidgety.

"Come in," Blake said kindly.

He got to his feet as the other man strode in. They shook hands. "Mr Potter! Surprised to see you here. Please have a seat."

"Please, call me Harry," Potter replied, sitting down. He looked really young for someone who was in his late twenties, thought Blake. He also looked slightly different from his pictures in the newspapers.

"I take it, you got my message?"

"Oh? Oh, yes, I – I did."

"That's great. He was spotted in Minnesota. If there are any other details I can help you with—"

"No, actually, my people are off to handle that," Potter replied, and Blake raised an eyebrow. It was unlike Potter not to accompany the other Aurors on a Death Eater hunt.

"Anything urgent?" Blake asked him. "Pardon me, but I've never heard of you letting go of a Death Eater chase."

Potter raised an eyebrow as his mouth twitched. "Uh… I just — something came up," he said. "My-my nephew was at Springf— _shit_…" he stopped, the last word coming out in the quietest of whispers.

"Your nephew?"

"Er… nothing," Potter replied. "I just need some information."

"Regarding?"

"Springfield Wizarding Hospital in Illinois."

Blake raised an eyebrow. "Something wrong there, Mr Potter? We can handle it if you tell us—"

"No, I must tackle this on my own," Potter replied. "I – I just need all the files on any Healers who were murdered, or have committed suicide in the hospital. And the patients who were there as a result of attempted murder, or suicide, and weren't able to make it. Your department would have files of it, right?"

"Yes, we do. But there are a lot of them."

"Well then, we'll have them all."

**~o~**

Half-an-hour later, Albus appeared in the Winchesters' hotel room with a loud _crack_. While Rose, Scorpius and Molly looked up from their places, unflinching, Sam and Dean looked startled. "Son of a bitch," Dean whispered. "What _can't_ you guys do?"

"Bring dead people back to life for starters," said Albus, wiping the sweat from his forehead, and smudging the lightning bolt shaped scar on his forehead that Molly had managed to get on with some makeup. He removed the glasses and blinked as his vision returned to normal.

"Well?" Rose asked him. She looked happy and anxious.

Albus grinned at her. "I've got it. They'll be arriving by owl post at this time tomorrow."

"Fantastic," said Dean clapping his hands twice. "Now we gotta go to the vic's house. Who's up to a little impersonation here?"

**~o~**

**_2029_**

Ron held Hermione against his chest, one hand running absently through her bushy hair. His eyes burned, and his throat was constricted. Beside him, a very tired Harry was holding Ginny's hand as they sat silently. James and Lily had gone to get some tea.

Across the corridor on a bench were Draco and Astoria Malfoy. Ron hadn't looked that way except for once, but he had seen his own worry reflected on Malfoy's face.

"Are we late?"

Percy entered the room, his face pale and shocked, followed by Audrey and a very tearful Lucy. He strode to Harry and Ron. "What is happening here?"

"We don't know," Harry whispered. "Hermione – Hermione had a dream. And they came here to find…" He sighed. "They were all unconscious in the ward next to Hugo's."

Percy raised an eyebrow. "Who all?"

"Molly," Harry replied, "And Al, Rose and Scorpius Malfoy."

"And…?"

"The Healers are checking them up," said Harry.

"Oh, Merlin…" Percy's face crumpled as he moved to sit beside his brother-in-law and sister.

There was silence. Hermione looked up at Ron, and he kept her close. "It's going to be okay."

"His name was Castiel, you said?" Harry asked her.

Hermione pulled away from her husband, wiping her eyes. "Yes."

"What did he look like?"

"Like a Muggle accountant," replied Hermione. "American. He asked us to take care of Al, Molly, Rose and Scorpius 'for as long as we have to'."

"What does he mean by that?"

Hermione shrugged. "He also asked to stop the anti-paralytic medication that was being administered on Hugo."

"Don't do that."

"No, I asked Terry to try it," said Hermione. "He was right about Al, Rose and the others."

"Don't argue with her about that," Ron said, before Harry could open his mouth. "She reckons something was very different about the dream."

"What was different?"

"It seemed too real," said Hermione. She sighed. "Trust me on this, Harry. Please."

He licked his chapped lips. "I believe you, Hermione. And," he swallowed, "I promise to find this Castiel bloke and find out what's happening for real. I think he's involved in whatever has gone wrong with Al, Rose, Hugo and Molly."

"And I'll help you," said Ron.

"Me too," Percy said from his seat.

There was silence. Suddenly, Malfoy got up from his seat. "Potter."

Harry looked at him, as Malfoy spoke on, his grey eyes determined. "I would like to help, too. Whoever has done this to our children — they've just declared war."


	9. And it Breaks

**A/N: **Hello!

Here's chapter eight, and I hope you guys enjoy it. This is unbetaed, because my beta got busy and had to give up on the story, but I'll look for a replacement soon. And before anyone asks, YES, this is Destiel, but the story is also canon, which means you'll have to wait for it to build up. In the meantime, Dean will flirt around, but let's not take that seriously, eh? And has anyone wondered about who Sam is paired with in the story? ;)

Either ways, please review! They spur me on and make me so happy. :)

* * *

**8. And it Breaks**

**_2029_**

Hermione had fallen asleep in Ron's arms when Terry walked out of the room holding Rose and the others' reports. Ron had sat there quietly for the last hour, comforting Hermione, and only occasionally talking to Harry, while Percy, Audrey and Ginny had whispered conversation. The Malfoys were silent, though, and Ron could figure they were terrified, too.

"Harry? Ron?"

Hermione stirred in Ron's arms and he put a hand on her cheek. "Hey. Terry's here."

Terry waited for everyone to be alert, before talking again. "We've put them all under utmost care," he said to the parents. "You can go and see them before we shift them all to the ICU."

"But what's wrong with them?" Audrey asked Terry. She was a Healer too, and she'd said she'd take over the case once Terry was done diagnosing.

The other Healer sighed. "They're in a coma. And there's nothing to explain it."

There was collective horror in everyone's faces. Ron even saw Malfoy take his wife's hand as they stood up. Percy was running his hands through his hair and muttering something. Beside Ron, Hermione's eyes were filling up and he kept his arm around her, willing himself not to break down as well.

"But – but Rosie's pregnant," he stammered numbly, wondering if anything else could go wrong. "She can't afford to have a simple sickness, Terry, let alone be in a coma."

"We will provide her with the required nutrition," said Terry, "She will need more attention than the others, no doubt, but if we're careful, we can get her and the baby out of this without any problems."

"Okay."

"Trust me."

"We trust you, Terry," Hermione spoke in a shaky voice. "You saved Hugo's life once, and we know you'll save all our children this time too.

**~o~**

**_2009_**

"I didn't realise that you guys wore regular clothes under these," said Dean as he and Sam met Scorpius outside his room. All three of them were dressed in SWH Healer robes, and were going to the victim's house to talk to her husband.

"It's more comfortable this way," Scorpius replied to him.

"Yeah. I don't think I'd like all that freedom either."

"Can we — can we just get done with this?" Sam asked, eyeing his own loose sleeves, and evidently uncomfortable in his own robes.

Dean grinned at him. "Lookin' good, Sammy."

"Shut up."

"Okay, take my arms," said Scorpius, interrupting them. "Let's get this over with."

The Winchesters did as they were instructed, and Dean felt himself being squeezed through a tube. He wouldn't lie to himself: he hated this Apparition thing. It was much better when Castiel transported them. At least he was gentler.

They landed in a deserted alley abruptly, and Dean almost stumbled to the ground as his feet touched base. His ears felt blocked — as though he was underwater, and he absently tapped against them until they came back to normal. Beside him, Sam was rubbing his nose.

"Now," said Scorpius, once the brothers had settled, "When we go in there, and I'll talk, okay? I don't want you two making him suspicious with Muggle terms. So just stay beside me and nod at everything I say. You get me?"

"Oh, Scorpo, you'd turn me on if I swung that way," Dean purred, and Sam lifted an eyebrow at his brother.

"So you don't swing that way?" Scorpius asked, amused at what Dean had just said.

"Why, do you?"

"No," the wizard replied. "I was wondering which one of you was with the angel. You know — romantically."

"Neither," said Dean.

"Pity," drawled Scorpius. "Because I could swear you looked at him different." He smirked, as Dean scowled at him.

"I don't do angels. Not the ones with their Grace intact anyway. Or nerd angels—" He didn't finish his sentence, when there was a heavy flutter of wings, and the three men found themselves facing Castiel.

"Speak of the devil," muttered Dean. "What's up, Cas?"

"I am not the devil," Castiel corrected Dean, obviously not understanding the reference. "You have Seals to prevent from breaking," he added.

"Yeah, I get that," Dean replied, "But we don't know where or how it's happening, and I thought that's what you angels were here for — to tell us about the Seals."

"Lilith has broken three-quarters of them, Dean," said Castiel. "You need to be alert."

"And we are," Dean snapped at him. "But in case you don't get it, we don't have angel radio, or wings like you do. We can only keep an eye on the signs, which are too damn many. Also, it would be good if you angels didn't sit on your haloed butts, and moved around to and guided us a little in that direction." He paused. "So is a Seal about to be broken?"

"No," said Castiel. "I just noticed that you were still in this town."

"Yeah, because we're working a case," said Dean. "Now if you'd excuse us," he continued, straightening his robes, "I have a wizard to impersonate here."

"Then I will see you later." Castiel turned to Scorpius. "And to answer your question from before, Dean and I do not fornicate on a regular basis. That would be absurd." With another flutter, he was gone.

"Sure, so long…" Dean trailed off.

"Well, he was awfully frank," Scorpius spoke again, continuing their conversation, as though an integral part of it hadn't just appeared and disappeared on their faces. He frowned. "So if it's not you, is it Sam? Though that seems unlikely."

"Sammy? Nah, he likes demons," Dean said bitterly, still staring at the spot where Castiel had vanished.

"Shut up," Sam said sternly.

"Demons?" Scorpius asked, arching an eyebrow. "Aren't they supposed to be… bad?"

"He's just kidding," Sam shrugged, flashing Dean a look of disapproval.

"Yeah," Dean muttered under his breath, but he hadn't been kidding. Sam's association with Ruby disturbed him like nothing else, and he wished his brother would listen to him and let go of the bitch. But he knew that Sam was too stubborn to do that. He was so sure he was on the right path; nothing Dean that could say would deter him now. Not unless something extreme happened. And Dean hoped to God, to Castiel, to everyone that whatever the extreme was going to be, it wouldn't make Sam swing out of reach. If that happened, he wouldn't be able to save his brother ever again.

**~o~**

"So, what do you do for a living?" Dean asked Molly as they rode the Impala together to the supermarket to pick up beer and groceries. A day had passed since the arrival of Blake's owl post — nay, owl _posts_, bearing hundreds of files on murders and suicides at SWH. Rose and Molly had tried going and talking to some of the Healers at SWH to make their work easier, but the people there had no idea about any violent ghost activity in the hospital. Hence, they were stuck to hours of just noting down possible deaths that could bring up the vengeful spirit, and the places where they had been buried, so when it came to facing the ghost, they wouldn't have to go through a hundred thousand files.

Sam, Dean and Scorpius also had got nothing from their talk with the latest victim's husband, except that she was completely fine, and then had to go to SWH after contracting Spattergroit ten months ago (Sam and Dean had been considerably amused at the name of the disease). She was treated, but after that, she began to develop severe, debilitating migraines, most of them requiring hospitalisation due to the severity. The final one had been the worst, and her head had exploded at the end of it. Needless to say, no-one had expected that.

"Didn't I tell you?" Molly asked Dean in reply to his own question.

"You never said. Rose said you 'invent things'. What do you invent?"

Molly smiled at the taller man. "Well, I invent jokes. Practical jokes. As in — my uncle thinks them up, and I help him bring them to life. My uncles own a shop."

He raised his eyebrows, keeping his eyes on the road. "Seriously?"

"Yep."

"You guys are more awesome than I thought! You got jokes in your world?"

"A whole lot," said Molly. "In fact, our shop has franchises here in America too. If I get time, I can show you some of the better jokes."

"I'd love to see that. Maybe pull a prank or two on Sammy."

Molly chuckled as they approached the supermarket, and Dean began to park the car. She had really started to like the Winchesters. They were gorgeous — and she thought both of them were really good people too. Plus, she was quickly developing a crush on Dean.

"So, do you get alcohol in your world?" Dean asked her, as they entered the shop.

"Loads of it." Molly walked over and grabbed a six-pack. "But it's different," she said, placing it in the trolley.

Dean threw in a loaf of bread and a few tins of soup. "Different how?"

Molly narrowed her eyes, thinking about it. "Well, we call it by different names."

"Like?"

"Butterbeer. Firewhiskey."

"That sounds good."

"They are pretty good. You should try them sometime."

Molly pushed the trolley down the cereals aisle, and picked up a box of corn flakes. "So," she said, "You and Sam seem really close."

"Got any siblings?" he asked her, adding a box of Lucky Charms.

"One," she replied.

"Brother or sister?"

"Little sister," Molly laughed. "Pain in the arse, really."

"Aren't they all?" He chuckled. "Pains in the _arse_?" He finished it with a deliberate and bad English accent.

"Hey!" she protested, turning around to face him.

He gave her a gorgeous grin before ducking into the aisle for prepared foods. She followed him there. "Don't pick up those. We'll buy food for everybody."

"These aren't for today," he replied, choosing several containers of macaroni and cheese. "We need to stock up for emergencies."

"Like?" she said. "We're blasting a ghost, not fighting a war."

"And I wish 'ghost blasting' was easy, but sometimes, it's not. If something happens, and we're not in the condition for public display—"

"Then Malfoy will heal our wounds, and we can go anyway," replied Molly. She took the macaroni and cheeses from his hands and put them back. "Relax. You're with the Weirdo World people. We can sort this out easily."

Dean raised an eyebrow. "How do you know—?"

"You called us that once before, remember?" she asked him. "Plus, I've got ears." She grinned at the thought of the Extendable Ears in her handbag. She had used one of them to keep a lookout for Uncle George or Uncle Ron on the day she had smuggled the Time-Turner, and had quickly stowed it into her bag before Disapparating to the hospital, hence causing it to travel with her and her handbag, to 2009.

She had used the Ears again on the second night of their stay at the inn. Since they hadn't had much to do that day, Molly and the others had just spent time with the Winchesters, all of them getting to know each other better. That was when Molly had decided that she liked the Winchesters.

She didn't understand how anyone couldn't find Dean attractive, if she were honest. Everything about him — starting from his voice, to his smile, and his eyes, was sexy. And she had expressed this opinion of hers to Rose, who was exasperated. _"You're not sleeping with him, Molly."_

_"Who said I want to sleep with him?"_ Molly had lied. _"I just think he's incredibly sexy."_

_"You think that the younger brother is sexy too."_

_"He's cute,"_ said Molly, _"But Dean is sexy."_

_"Whatever. Just make sure the 'he's sexy' doesn't turn into 'I had sex with him'."_ She looked at Molly with a hint of warning in her eyes. _"You know what that leads to, don't you?"_

_"Yeah,"_ sighed Molly. _"I won't do it, Rosie."_

_"Yes, and if you ever feel the need to do that, remember that he's technically about as old as your dad."_

_"Great way to gross me out. I won't do it. You've got a promise."_

But that was just a hollow promise, as that night, Molly had snuck out of her room and eavesdropped on the Winchesters. If she were honest with herself, she didn't care how much older the brothers 'technically' were. They were young enough for her in the year that she was in. But during her eavesdropping, Molly hadn't heard any opinions about herself from the brothers, but she did hear Dean referring to the Wizarding world as 'Weirdo World' over and over again.

"I hope you're not daydreaming about me," Dean said smoothly, shaking Molly out of her reverie. She looked into his green eyes.

"What would you say if I was?"

"Say? Nothing," he said. "But I would have dinner with you. Tomorrow."

Molly stopped and grinned at him. "I thought you'd never ask."

"I'm not asking."

She winked at him as she began to unload the trolley at the cash counter. "I like your style, Dean Winchester. Let's see what else I like about you."

"Oh, you have no idea," he said, gesturing to the homemade pie and signalling the shopkeeper to pack him some, "The list will go on and on."

"Is it?" Molly asked him. "Well, we'll find out later, won't we?"

"Later — how late?"

"Late," she said. "When it's dark out. Really dark. I need someone to save me from the monsters, you know."

"Isn't that what I'm here for?"

**~o~**

Dinner was a quiet affair at Sam and Dean's room. Sam didn't miss the glances that Dean and Molly kept giving each other, and he realised that Rose had picked up on it, when she said to Molly, "I'm going to need you to help me with some of the exercises tonight."

Molly's eyes deviated from Dean and swivelled over to her cousin. "Oh. Okay." She seemed a little disappointed, but she finished dinner quickly, and excused herself, so she could work on the Time-Turner. Dean, Sam noticed, looked disappointed too. Something must have happened when Dean and Molly had gone out to pick up food and groceries. After some talking, and some more work on the notes from stack of files that they'd received, Rose, Albus and Scorpius said their goodnights to the Winchesters too.

Sam waited for the door to shut behind Rose, before rounding on Dean. "Don't tell me that you've nailed Molly _already_."

His brother raised an eyebrow. "What's it to you?"

"They're probably going to stick around for a while," Sam replied. "Don't mess it up, Dean."

"I asked her out to dinner, okay? Just dinner."

"You expect to get in bed with her after that."

"Hey! She was the one who hinted at it."

"She probably thinks you're looking for a relationship or something."

"Yeah?" Dean frowned at his brother. "You banged a _demon_, Sam. God knows, you're probably still fucking her. Molly is human, and is a consenting adult who knows exactly what she is doing, so you're in no position to give me crap."

Sam tried not to get annoyed with Dean at the Ruby dig as he threw up his hands. "Fine. Have it your way."

"Yeah, and I never needed your permission for that."

"Okay. I won't ask you anymore." Sam headed to the door, grabbing his coat.

"Where're you off to?" Dean asked Sam as he put his hand on the doorknob.

"Soda," Sam lied, feeling the pocket of his jacket. Ruby's mention had got him to start craving demon blood again, and he remembered the flask-full she'd given him the last time, hidden in his coat pocket. He needed some of it now.

"Get me a Coke, will you?"

"Sure."

He walked out of the room and down to the vending machine. Pausing, he removed the flask, unscrewed the lid and put it to his lips. Thick and sticky, the demon blood flowed into his mouth, sliding down his oesophagus. Sam shut his eyes — he had never liked the taste of the demon blood — it had made him gag the first time. But he loved the sense of power that overtook his senses when he drank it. He loved the confidence that seemed to flow through his veins. He felt strong. Invincible. _Free_.

Feeling much better already, he pulled out his phone and dialled Ruby's number. He was running out of demon blood — there were just a few drops remaining in the flask. If Sam didn't get a refill soon, he'd start losing his powers. As he put the phone to his ear, he got Ruby's voicemail. "Ruby, where are you? I'm running out," he said after the beep. "Call me when you get this."

He made his way back into the hotel. Everything looked more vibrant — more _lit up_. He was walking to his room with his brother's Coke when he saw Molly in the corridor. She was seated sideways on a couch, her back facing Sam as she wrote something down on a piece of parchment before her. Sam realised he had never seen the couch before.

"Hey," he called out, causing her to turn around to look at him.

"Hi!" She cleared the parchment off the cushion and capped her ink pot as she gestured to the now-empty cushion.

He joined her, placing Dean's Coke on the floor. She eyed it. "Is that yours?"

"No, it's for Dean," he replied.

"Oh," she said, picking it up and flicking open the tab. "Then I suppose he won't mind if I drink some."

"He sure won't."

Molly tilted her head at Sam as she took a sip. "You look different."

"Me? I… don't t-think so." What was she talking about? Did she know? Had she seen him? Did her abilities let her know the difference?

"You do," she said, offering him the can. "There's something odd about you, and I can't quite put my finger to it. You look… scary."

"I'm just the same," Sam replied. "You can have the Coke," he said, refusing the Coke she had offered, and changing the subject desperately. "I don't want it. Dean would hate it if I came in between," he continued, hoping she would cotton on, and not prod him further.

She laughed. "He's _that_ particular, huh?"

"He is," said Sam, leaning back into the cushions. "So," he said, patting the sofa. "Where'd you find this?"

"Conjured it," Molly replied, gulping some more of the drink.

Sam almost didn't get his voice out. "What?"

"Yeah," she said. "You should stop being surprised, really." She frowned. "Are you sure you're okay?"

"Yeah, why?"

"Your pupils are dilated," Molly supplied. "And I could swear there's something off about you."

"You've barely known me two days," Sam shrugged. "This is all me, I promise."

"Hmm," she seemed unconvinced. She took a moment to look down at the parchment, where, Sam noticed, she'd calculated something.

"Time-Turner?" he asked her.

"Yep," she said. "I need to get it right. And _fuck_, it's difficult." Molly looked up at him. "Would you have any knowledge of—?"

"I'm hardly the engineer," replied Sam. "I can help you with state laws, lore, mystical stuff and basic medical information. But you gotta ask Dean about this. He knows this stuff much better. He built the Impala from scratch when we crashed it a few years ago."

She raised her eyebrows. "You crashed that thing?"

"More than once."

"Wow. I'd have never guessed."

"That's why you should take Dean's help with this," said Sam. He squinted at the integrals. "Although, I doubt he works with math notes. He'll just go for what his instincts tell him."

"I'm just using the maths to get me a beginning," Molly confessed. "I reckoned if I tried to calculate some of it, I might know where to start."

"Well, if I were you," said Sam, frowning again at what she'd written down, "I'd start with building the body of the thing."

"You mean of the part that's broken?"

"Yeah. I'd build it first, and then, I'd try to — you know, magic it, or whatever it is that you do."

"Like, enchant it after building it?"

"Isn't that how you work?"

"We do," Molly replied. "But the materials… I can't figure out what I need to rebuild it. Or I'd have done it."

"Hmm." He picked up her notes. "Tell you what? I'll try to help you with this. Get some sleep now — we'll work on this tomorrow."

She smiled. "It's a date."

"I thought you had one of those with my brother."

The smile turned into brief laughter. "Not like _that_, you prat, study date — or, I don't know what this is called — nerd date."

He chuckled at her calling him a prat. It sounded amusing the way she said it. "I know," he replied, "I was just pulling your leg."

She shook her head. "You are really not… normal right now. You seem too bold… too _free_ to be _you_. What's up with you?"

"I was trying not to ruin my brother's date," Sam shrugged. "And I guess Rose missed something in my personality analysis, if you think I'm off somehow."

"Rose said you were a secretive person. So according to that, you're supposed to be a little more reserved. A little more hesitant to be friends with someone so soon."

"Dean asked you on a date. He's a secretive person, if you haven't guessed already."

"He wants to get laid, Sam, who are we kidding?" She shook her head. "And according to Rose, he tends to mingle more freely than you do. You, on the other hand… you're so different." Molly laughed again, and paused, her expression soft. "You guys tell each other everything?"

"Almost," Sam said, guilt making itself evident in his chest. Yes, he told his brother about everything. Except for a small part of all that 'everything'. A small part. _Dean would be hurt…_

"So you do tell him about everything," Molly said, shaking Sam out of his reverie, and taking the 'almost' in the wrong way. "Obviously, there's always personal stuff—"

Sam didn't want to feel the guilt anymore. It hurt. But Molly couldn't know. "Yeah," he said, hoping lying would make him feel better. "No secrets." To his horror, the guilt deepened.

"Wow," said Molly. "That's amazing."

"Got any siblings?"

Her expression softened again. "Yes. A sister. But she's not like you, and I'm not like Dean. I'm actually closer to Rose."

"You don't want to be like our family," said Sam. "Believe me."

"I do," she said. "Believe _me_. So Dean — he's—?"

"Yeah," Sam finished for her, standing up, unable to think of it, or say it out loud as the guilt spread across his body miserably. "Pain in the ass."

"Wow," she whispered. She handed him the half-empty can of coke, mesmerised. "Give that to your _pain-in-the-arse_ best friend. And…" she sighed. "You're really lucky, Sam. I always thought I was the luckiest person on this planet to have Rosie, but now I have a close contender."

"Considering what she's doing for her brother, anyone's lucky to have Rose," said Sam. He was surprised that Molly had deciphered him, and found himself too embarrassed to think of him and Dean the way she'd said it, as he accepted the can and made his way to his and Dean's room.

**~o~**

"You seem to be going conventional on this," said Sam, as Dean smoothed his coat in front of the mirror. "I never thought you were capable of going on dates."

"She's a good girl," Dean replied, combing his hair. He let out breath that he'd never been aware of holding. "She's not just some bar chick that I'm picking up for a one-night stand."

"Ah, so you're looking for something there," Sam concluded.

"No," replied the other man. He pressed his lips together and turned to his brother. "Actually, I want to see where this goes."

"If you have to know," said Sam, "She is aware that you just expect to get laid. So you really needn't make excuses."

Dean didn't say anything. He nodded once at Sam before exiting the room. Pressing his lips together, he headed to the girls' room and knocked at the door. The door opened immediately, and he peeked in to see Rose on the bed, holding a file in one hand, and her wand in the other.

"Hi," he said to her.

"Hey," she said, her smile not too convincing. "Molly's in the loo. She should be here in a minute."

"Thanks."

"You can come in."

Dean entered the room and shut the door behind him, pulling a chair up to Rose's bed to see how much she had worked on. "Did you get any more leads?" she asked him.

"Nothing that fits the MO of the spirit we're looking for," he said. "I really don't get it."

"Molly figured if she could fix the viewing portal on the Time-Turner, at least we can see how Hugo and the rest of us are doing," said Rose. "So she's going to work on that first."

"Good thinking."

"And Sam said you're not a bad engineer yourself," said Molly's voice and Dean looked at the bathroom door, only to feel his breath fall short for a moment. Molly was in a simple, white dress (the kids and Molly had all gone shopping for clothes and other stuff the previous day), her long, red hair falling down her shoulders, and a wide smile on her face. She approached him. "Ready to go?"

"If – if you are…"

She chuckled as she stowed her wand into her handbag. "So are you really an engineer?"

"Just a mechanic," Dean shrugged. "I can fix cars… and build the occasional EMF sensor. I didn't really go to college."

"Doesn't matter," said Molly. "Very few people go to a uni equivalent in our world too. Only specialised people like Rosie, actually."

"I'll try to help you, then," he said.

"Sure. You can join my nerd dates with Sam, ha!" She held out her arm. "And let's move before Rose starts analysing our dynamics."

Dean glanced at Rose, who indeed seemed to have narrowed her eyes. "The car," he said to Molly.

"As you wish," she said, before heading out of the room with him. Dean could still feel Rose's stare burn through his back as he shut the door after him, and he wondered why the witch was so disapproving of him and Molly. But she'd come to terms soon, he guessed.

**~o~**

Rose had been working, listing the names on the parchment, and occasionally taking a break by lying down for a while, when she heard another tap on the door. Dean and Molly had just left, and she wondered if Molly had forgotten something, as she lazily flicked her wand at the door. "Come in."

It wasn't Molly. Albus entered the room and shut the door behind him. "Hey."

"Hey, Al."

"How're you doing?"

"Good, you?"

He took the chair that Dean had occupied a few minutes ago. Then he looked around. "Where's Molly?"

Rose sighed. "She went on a date with Dean."

"What?!"

She smiled. "Don't look so surprised. It's Molly."

"No, it's not that!" Albus said. "Rose — we need to talk about something."

"What?"

He ran a hand through his hair. "I so wish Molly hadn't gone on that date. Oh, Merlin…"

"What's wrong, Albus?" Rose asked, frowning at Albus and sitting up from her lounging position. "What is it?"

"It's just that—" he hesitated. "I don't think the Winchesters are trustworthy."

She arched an eyebrow. "What's making you say that?"

He licked his lips. "What do you think of Sam?"

"He's milder than he looks," said Rose. "Why?"

"He – he… I saw him yesterday…"

"Doing what?"

"Drinking blood." Albus's voice was down to a whisper.

Rose blinked several times. "Come again?"

"I was outside, taking a walk," he explained, "And I saw Sam by one of those Muggle vending machines. And I was about to go and say 'hey'." Albus bit his lip unsurely. "And…"

"And what?"

"He was drinking from this flask, you know. This silver thing — carved and all."

"Okay."

"And just as I was about to go and talk to the bloke, he stopped drinking… and his mouth… it was coated with blood."

Rose was confused. "Did you talk to him? What did he tell you?"

"I didn't talk to him," he said. "I got back to the room before he could see me."

"You should have asked him."

"Yeah? How? 'Hey, Sam, is that blood you're drinking?'"

"It needn't have been blood, Al."

"It sure as hell wasn't rose syrup," said Albus.

"Well, they have cough syrups that are red and thick — they're Muggles."

"Yeah, and when was the last time you heard him cough?"

Rose pondered over it. "Well, he seems harmless to me," she said, "But we'll keep an eye out anyway."

"Molly's gone alone with Dean, Rose."

"She can take care of herself. He's just a Muggle."

"Who drinks blood?"

"It was brother who was drinking 'blood', Al," said Rose, making the air-quotes.

"And that explains why the other brother wouldn't be doing the same thing."

Rose sighed. "Whatever. I just think — if they were dangerous, they wouldn't be going out of their way to help us like this. They have bigger things at hand. They even told us."

Albus was silent at that. He nodded. "You're right. Maybe there's a valid explanation." He looked into her eyes. "How are you?"

"You asked me already — I'm good."

"No, really."

"I'm fine, Al," said Rose, looking back down at her parchment.

"You know," he said, "You can fool Molly. And maybe even Malfoy—"

"— I just want to get back home," Rose whispered, almost scared, and breaking apart under his tiny prod. She turned away. She hadn't meant for it to be this way, but it was just taking over everything… consuming her.

Albus looked taken aback for a minute, not believing what she had said to him. Finally, he reached up and patted her shoulder. "Hey, Molly's working on it, okay. And — you should take it easy."

She nodded, a hand moving for her wet eyes, deciding that she might as well talk to Albus. "Scorpius is trying so hard for me, Al, I wish… I wish he'd just back down and give me a break. I wish we weren't in a coma back in our year — our mums and dads have enough to worry about. I wish Hugo weren't ill. It's all getting too hard. I can't take it anymore."

She stopped, the sudden outburst shocking her again. She was rarely beside herself like this. She didn't expect herself to let go of the carefully shepherded emotions like that, and she knew she had scared Albus when he reached for her hand and squeezed it. His face was white — whether it was the shock, or just a trick of the light, she couldn't tell. But when he spoke, his voice was steady.

"Talk to me, Rose."


	10. Whipped Cream and Chocolate Cake

**A/N: **This will be the second-last chapter before I put this story on hiatus. My time is very limited for fanfiction and not going to lie, guys, but my other story is getting more attention, and I'm rather inclined to write that in the time I get. I'm actually on a hiatus from all fanfiction activity. But I will be back. In a month or two. And one more chapter to go after this before that happens, so not that bad, huh? :) I'll be back with another beta by then.

This chapter, you'll see some brotherly love. Oh, and there's some smut too, hahaha. Destiel shippers, don't worry, I'll get there.

Comments would be wonderful. :)

* * *

**9. Whipped Cream and Chocolate Cake**

Albus licked his lips as he processed the things that Rose had just said to him. She had revealed everything to him — about how she felt messed up, and stuck and helpless, and how she just wanted to get out of this. His face evidently paled as she spoke, and she knew she was scaring him, but she had no choice — she was scaring herself, and she couldn't take it anymore. However, Albus never stopped her from talking, and she was grateful to him. She knew he was one of the only people in the world who could see her break apart, without running away. And that was why she considered him her best friend.

"Rosie, you have no idea how strong you are…" Albus spoke finally, when she was done, giving her hand another squeeze. "You will get through this. I know. You know how? I see you everyday, helping people deal with all sorts of crap. So many patients in such terrible situations, and then you — you have your pregnancy, and your situation with Malfoy… you're so much stronger than me and Molly, and hell, even James and Lily put together. And speaking of Molly — Rose, you practically saved her life. Merlin knows, we'd have lost her if it weren't for you.

"You are the most capable of getting out of this in one piece, you know. Remember what you said to me when we were kids? On that camping trip?"

Rose's memory went back to the day when she and Hugo had gone camping with Uncle Harry and Aunt Ginny. She would never forget that day. It was one of the incidents that had made her believe she'd do well as a psychiatrist.

_They had trekked up a small hill, and Aunt Ginny and James had been the first to reach up there. Rose, Uncle Harry and Lily had followed up soon after. The last, however, was Albus. He was having trouble climbing up the final rock, which, Rose was aware, was difficult to climb up without slipping. And as her cousin held out his hand to his laughing siblings, Rose had knelt down before Albus's red, sweaty face, and said calmly, "Take that last step, Al."_

_"No," He had said, biting his lips so hard, they were bleeding. "It's too difficult!"_

_"Come on," she encouraged him, as James, Lily, Hugo and her uncle and aunt looked on. "You can do it."_

_He listened to her, and tried harder, but failed. He was just left where he was, his legs positioned awkwardly as his hands blistered from holding on. "I… can't…"he gasped, almost in tears._

_"Don't say that," she had said. "Because look, this is just a small obstacle — a physical obstacle. There are a lot of obstacles that you have to face in your life, and if you can't take this step, how will you get through all the other ones? Come on. You can do this. Listen to me."_

_He listened to her, determination beginning to dawn on his face, as the expression on his face changed rapidly from fear to strong will. His hand slowly moved away from being extended to his siblings, to the rock, as his legs battled against the surface, and he finally hauled himself to the top, panting in pride, before pulling Rose into a hug. "Thanks, Rosie."_

Currently, Rose nodded at Albus. "I might remember that day."

"You know, Mum was so impressed with you," said Albus. "She kept telling Dad that you were one of the strongest people she knew. Like _your_ mum. Now, Rose, _I'm_ telling you this: you can do it. You're more than capable. This was one of those obstacles you were talking about, and you are strong enough to deal with it, okay?"

Rose took a deep breath, and then there was a knock at the door. She wiped away the remnants of tears from her eyes as she waved her wand again. "Come in."

The door swung open, and she saw Scorpius. "Hey," he said, in a low voice.

She gestured for him to enter the room, but he didn't, and as she looked at his face properly, she realised that he had _that_ look — and she couldn't remember seeing it anytime in the near past, because, after all, she'd seen only once before. And that was another day she'd never forget.

_"It's… the anniversary of her death tomorrow. That's why Millie wants me to stay here. She can't have me in the house for now. But I don't want to be alone. Please don't leave me alone."_

It was the day that Scorpius had spoken to Rose about his ex-wife, and his dead daughter. The time that Scorpius had accepted defeat. He had given up his hold on the very thing that he didn't want to talk about — the thing that was actually holding him back. And right now, he was back, looking just like he had looked on that night, two years ago. Defeated.

"I tried," he finally said, coming in, and Rose knew he had heard the conversation between her and Albus.

"Scorpius—"

"No, I'm sorry," he said. "I didn't — I didn't know it was so hard for you." Albus looked utterly uncomfortable with his own presence in the room. Quietly, he excused himself and left, as Scorpius took his place.

"I didn't mean—" Rose sighed, but Scorpius held up a hand.

"Rose… I just… I'm just like that, you know," he gave her a shaky laugh. "I'm a git. I tried to hold back Millie long after it was over between us. I was in denial about the real reason that Vic was with me for quite a while. And then you…

"You have been my saviour," he said quietly. "My hero. I'll never forget that. But… I never knew I was causing you all that pain. I never expected that. Like Potter said, you're so strong — it seems like you can take just about anything and…" he trailed off. "I'm sorry I took you for granted. I shouldn't have done that. You're human too."

Rose wanted to say something, but if he'd just heard what she had said to Al, she knew it was of no use. He looked at her earnestly. "I've been selfish. I wanted to be in my child's life, be happy again, but I didn't realise how much that was disturbing you. But honestly, I just wanted you to be happy, you know? And obviously, me coming and prodding you about us again and again — it's not going to make anything better. So…"

He sighed. "I just… can we start over? As friends? Just plain, platonic friendship?"

"Scorpius," said Rose, "I just… I'm sorry you had to hear it from me like that. I'm just going through a lot."

"I understand."

"But… a friendship would be good," she said. "It's a start."

He looked sad. "Don't say that, Rose, don't give me hope."

"Okay, then, we'll be friends. Let's see how we do as friends."

"Thank you." He bent over and kissed her cheek lightly, and Rose let him, feeling the light brush of his lips against her skin. She shut her eyes as he pulled away, not opening them when he got up and left, and wondering how much he truly cared for her if he was ready to give up on her just so that one of her burdens would be gone.

**~o~**

"See that couple there?" Molly said, gesturing mildly to a man and woman, not too far from where she and Dean were sitting.

"Mm hmm," said Dean, glancing at them.

"The bloke is cheating on that poor lady," replied Molly. "I know it."

"How can you tell?"

"Oh, call it an intuition," winked Molly.

Dean gave her a smile before forking some of the pie into his mouth. Molly took a sip of her beer, watching him as he concentrated on his dessert, his long eyelashes pointing downwards and hiding the marvellous green that his eyes were. He was definitely one handsome devil — she had to give that to him. And she couldn't see how Rose expected her to exercise control.

Mentally apologising to Rose, Molly spoke. "Dean?"

He looked up, his mouth full of pie. Giggling, Molly gestured to a spot of whipped cream on the corner of his mouth.

He wiped it away, but not quite, and Molly didn't know if he'd done it on purpose, but on a sudden, inevitable urge, she lightly traced a finger over the cream and wiped it off. "There," she said, putting a napkin to her finger, trying to ignore the jolt of electricity that passed through her when she touched his lips.

The green eyes were looking at her again, lids shutting sluggishly over them as a firm hand cupped her face. And Molly didn't even resist Dean as he came close… closer… and she could count the freckles on his face before his lips touched hers.

It started out slow — her hands moving up his thigh and he stopped briefly to gasp, and then his lips came back on hers, working more vigorously this time, his tongue peeking out and starting to trace her mouth. Abruptly, Molly pulled away, her heart fluttering. "Not — not here…" she gasped.

He stood up immediately. "Men's room. Meet me there in two minutes."

She nodded as he left, uncaring about his pie, and folded her arms around herself, trying to stop the goosebumps that were forming on her. Her heart was still beating fast — extremely fast — and she tapped her shoes restlessly as she counted two minutes. Finally unable to contain herself, she rushed to the loos, and found him waiting inside as soon as she had pushed the door open.

"What took you so long?" he gasped, and she barely had time to lock the door behind her before he grabbed her by the shoulders, getting himself down to her height and crashing his lips onto hers while she threw her arms around his neck. His tongue was more active this time, feeling the corners of her lips and moving tantalisingly to the borders, and with a sudden motion, he pushed her against the wall, one hand palming the tiled surface, while the other gripped her waist.

His lips moved away from hers, kissing their corners, and then moving to her neck, at the spot between her clavicles, causing her to fist the material of his coat while his own fingers played with the strap of her dress. He eased it down swiftly, coming up and kissing her bare shoulder as she started to pull off his coat.

The coat finally got to the floor. Molly un-tucked his shirt and ripped open the buttons, hands slinking in and tracing fingers over his back. Dean, in the meantime, reached under her dress, unhooking her strapless bra, and she pulled away just for a moment just to get it off, and then they were back, his hands exploring eagerly, fingers stroking secret areas and thumbs rubbing tantalising circles while he pressed soft kisses on her neck. She moved her hands to his bare chest, and up and down to his neck, his shoulders, and back to his chest. Then she drew him into another kiss, her fingers moving along his spine as their tongues flicked against each other.

Her hands moved to his front again, and down to his trousers and she undid the button, and then the zipper, urgently drawing forward the elastic of his boxers as she inserted her fingers into them. He let out a gasp at her touch; she pulled away briefly to get her knickers off. As his trousers and boxers fell down, gathering at his ankles, he kissed her again, placing interlocked hands on her arse and hauling her up easily. Her legs wrapped around his hips, she pulled up her dress, so it was gathered at the level of her navel, and felt the touch of his warm skin as their abdomens clashed against each other. Then Molly was pressed against the wall for a second time, and he moved for the final step. She gasped, biting her lips, while he let out a low moan of his own.

They moved in unison, rigorously, bodies writing against each other, his arms holding Molly up easily, while her hands worked on exploring him. He moved her, rocking her in synchronisation with himself, so that her body was arching in ecstasy, small gasps of breath escaping her. And all she saw after that were his green eyes widening, his mouth parting in a series of gasps of his own, and sweat pouring down his forehead as he threw his head back, and she groaned happily while she clutched on to his close-cropped hair, and then moved to grip on to his muscular back, aware that she had probably died in pleasure.

**~o~**

"That was…" Dean trailed off mid-sentence as he redressed himself, watching Molly smooth her hair by the mirror.

"It was fantastic," said Molly as she straightened her dress. She sighed. "Wish we didn't have to stop."

"This is a public place," he chuckled, buttoning up his shirt.

"Unfortunately."

As he reached for the final button, a voice suddenly spoke from behind Dean. "Hello, Dean."

"Fuck!" Dean swore, jerking his hands away from the button and turning, only to face Castiel. He sighed. "In the bathroom, Cas? _Really_?"

"I need to talk to you. Alone."

Molly heard this and headed to the door. "I'll see you at the table. Cheers, Castiel!"

The angel nodded at her, and spoke to Dean as the door shut behind Molly. "I waited at the table, but you didn't seem to want to come back. I could only guess that you were here."

"So you decided to invade my privacy by entering the bathroom?" Dean asked him.

"I didn't know that you were having intercourse," Castiel shrugged

"Cas…" Dean grumbled. "You're a stupid bastard, you know that?" He watched the slight bewilderment in Castiel's face and explained further. "Humans have something called personal space. You're not supposed to invade it. Understand?"

"Yes." Castiel paused. "Dean?"

"Yeah."

"I don't understand what 'personal space' is supposed to mean."

"It means you've gotta keep your distance," replied Dean. "We need our privacy. You get it now?"

"Yes."

"Good." Dean turned his back at Castiel and headed to the door, only to bump into the angel again. Literally. A jolt of pain passed through the area beneath his right clavicle — the part that had hit against Castiel. It sent crackles of signals throughout him, and Dean swore under his breath. "Goddammit, Cas! What now?" he asked, rubbing the spot.

"I haven't finished talking to you."

"So did you have to fucking _bump_ into me like that? You couldn't call out?"

"Sorry," said the angel apologetically. "I just wanted to say — my superiors reveal that there is possibility to track and prevent another Seal from breaking."

"Okay," said Dean. "Where?"

"We will find out and tell you. Stay alert," replied the other.

"Sure. You done?"

"Yes."

"Can I go back to Molly?"

"Yes."

"Thank you."

Dean walked out of the bathroom at long last, still rubbing the spot that had bumped against Castiel. The son of a bitch was strong, he realised. He, Dean, was going to have a bruise there by night time. Great. As if the hand print weren't enough, he'd soon bear another mark of a nerd angel's touch.

Just as he took his place next to a smiling Molly and accepted the check, he heard the flutter of Castiel's wings again, to find the chair next to him occupied by the angel. "God, Cas…" he began, but the angel just placed a hand on the sore area, and Dean felt the pain vanish immediately.

"Thanks," he said, as Castiel vanished again, not noticing the looks that Molly was giving the two of them.

**~o~**

May second had never been a happy day for Sam. Accepted, it was his birthday, which meant that most people would be happy and excited, but all that gripped Sam on this day was dread. Dean had gone to Hell on this very day, exactly a year ago. Sam had had to start getting used to the idea that his brother just had a year to live, starting this day, exactly two years ago. And even before that, none of his birthdays had been all that special, with his father away on hunting trips for most of them, and with only Dean and his little cupcakes to celebrate the occasion.

Dean had arrived from the date last night with a smile plastered to his face, which Sam couldn't decipher. He guessed that the date with Molly had gone well. And pretty well, it seemed, when Dean had slumped into bed hours later, the same smile on his face.

Sam couldn't blame him for it. He quite liked Molly too — not in the way that Dean did, of course, but he thought Molly was really nice. She was friendly, always cheerful and easy-going, no matter what. Considering the circumstances that Sam and Dean were going through, having such a person around was a blessing.

Sam rolled to his side, watching the clock next to his bed tick time away, its hour hand inching to five o'clock. He could hear the birds chirping outside, and he sighed as he sat up. Dean was still asleep on the other bed. Sam made his way to the shower, getting his clothes without waking his brother. He was done with the shower in ten minutes, and after a shave, he sat down with the SWH files, marking out the suspicious names.

There really were too many names. After two days, they were still collecting names, and this wasn't good. Maybe it was time they went to the hospital itself and found out what was going on? How would he and Dean get in, though?

An hour passed with Sam noting down as many names as he could find that fit the MO of the ghost. His legs were cramping up. Pushing the papers away, he stood up and stretched. He was hungry, and he could do with breakfast.

He picked up his coat and put it on. As he got outside the room, he was greeted by the familiar sight of Molly sitting on her couch with her parchment. She looked up when she heard him shut the door. "Hey!"

Sam smiled at her. "Good morning. Up so early?"

"Not adjusted to the time zone," she shrugged. "What's your excuse?"

"I don't sleep all that much."

"Seriously?"

"Yep."

"So where are you off to now?"

"Breakfast. Coming?"

"Okay!"

She folded her parchment and stowed it into her pocket. "Oh," she said, rummaging through her other pocket, "I forgot." She produced a cell phone. "Al got us mobiles. To keep communication with you guys, you know."

"Ah, okay," said Sam, removing his own. "You want my number?"

"Sure! Thankfully, I know how to use these," she said, and looked up at him, waiting for him to dictate his number. He obliged, and took hers in turn.

"Shall we leave?" he asked her. "We'll pick up breakfast for everyone," he said.

"Yeah, let's go." They headed out of the hotel together, neither of them noticing Rose slipping out of her and Molly's room, and walking to the Winchesters' room.

**~o~**

Dean groaned at the loud sounds of knocking as he shifted lazily on his bed. "Get the door, Zammy."

There was no reply, but the knocks kept coming. "What the hell?" Dean muttered, opening his eyes and yawning. "Sam?"

Sam was nowhere to be seen. He probably woke up early and went to get breakfast. Dean swore again and got off his bed, bare feet padding to the door. He opened it to see Rose standing outside.

"Hey, Rose," said Dean, covering a yawn. "What brings you here so early? Found something?"

"Not really," she replied. "Can I come in?"

"Sure," he replied, seeing the urgent expression on her face, and standing aside to let her in. "What happened?"

She shut the door behind her. "Dean, it's about Molly."

**~o~**

Molly was humming an unfamiliar tune as she and Sam sat in the diner and waited for their breakfast. Sam looked at her, watching her head bob slightly, and her grey eyes sparkle as she looked at the rising sun. She looked really happy about something.

"What are you humming?" he asked Molly finally, diverting his thoughts to her.

"The Weird Sisters," she responded. "The song is called 'It's His Defeat'." She grinned when he didn't understand. "Today's a special day in my world. It's Victory Day."

"Victory Day?"

"Yeah. Eleven years ago on this very day, Uncle Harry defeated Voldemort."

"So you guys celebrate this every year?"

"Yep, firecrackers, Hogwarts flags, and my uncle's face peeking out of posters everywhere."

"How don't we notice it?"

"You do," she said. "Your news will be full of owl spottings and meteor rains tonight. Just wait and watch. Also, you might have noticed that there are firecrackers every year on this night for no reason."

"Oh, if that's it, Dean and I do see all those things every year," he said. "We realised that it happens on my bir – this day too. We tried making connections, but there was nothing."

"Not your kind of problem," she replied. "You can tell all your hunter mates."

"Oh, yeah," he said. "Wait till Bobby finds out about you guys."

"Bobby?"

"He was our dad's friend," said Sam. "He's like a father to us now, really."

"Why? What happened to your dad?" she asked, but then clamped a hand over her mouth, her eyes widening. "Sorry. I didn't mean—"

"No, it's fine," Sam replied. "He passed away, actually, a little more than two years ago." He looked down. It still hurt to think of it.

"I'm sorry," Molly repeated. The sparkle in her eyes was gone. "That's terrible."

"We're used to it," Sam sighed. "Perks of being a hunter. Everyone around you has to die."

She opened her mouth to say something, and looked shocked at what he'd just said. But she didn't go on to ask him who else had died, and Sam was thankful to that. At long last their breakfast arrived and they picked up the containers to head back to their hotel, an awkward silence now making its way between them.

**~o~**

"Do you like her?"

Dean raised an eyebrow at Rose's blatant question. "Excuse me?"

"What happened yesterday?"

He frowned at her. "You are a really nosy shrink."

"It's not…" Rose bit her lip. "Look, I'm not psycho-analysing you. I barely know you, and it's not my place to tell you anything, unless _you_ want to know. This is for Molly. I'm trying to help her."

"Is that so?"

Rose nodded, and Dean could see that she was honest. He wondered what it was that Molly needed saving from. Did Rose think that Dean was going to dump her cousin, or break her heart in some way?

He sat up straight. "Okay, Juno, here's the deal. You tell me your story first, and I'll tell you mine in exchange."

"_Juno?_"

"It's this movie — never mind," said Dean. "So you're all set to be a single mom, aren't you?"

Rose looked surprised. "How did you—?"

"If you had a husband or a boyfriend, he wouldn't allow you to do what you're doing now."

She chuckled. "You'll be surprised at how stubborn I could get."

"Yeah, but something tells me that I'm right about you."

She sighed. Then nodded. "You are."

"Of course I am. What was it? A night's mistake?"

"No," she replied. "Scorpius."

"Scorpo? No kidding!"

"No, really," she said. "We were living together and all… and shit happened… he walked out on me, and I was already pregnant at the time. It was just that neither of us knew."

"And he didn't want back in?"

"He did. I didn't want him back in." Dean let out a low whistle at her words. Rose crossed her arms. "Your story, now."

"It was a normal date," he said, "Until Cas interrupted us rudely."

"You had sex. You and Molly."

It wasn't a question, but Dean didn't reply to that, and Rose understood the silence. "I told her…" she said. Licking her lips, she looked at Dean earnestly. "Okay," she said. "Just… Molly… don't hurt her, okay?"

"Well, it was just a date… but I'll be good to her. That's a promise." If he were honest with himself, Dean wouldn't mind another date with Molly. He had even hinted at it the previous night, but Molly didn't seem keen, so he'd dropped the subject.

"So this is because you care for Molly, huh," he said.

"Yeah," she replied. "She's been through some stuff. She bounced back with a lot of difficulty and in some ways, she's overcompensating too. But most of all, I hate seeing her hurt, you know."

"Yeah, I know," Dean said to her. "But tell you what, Juno? Don't worry about her. She can take care of herself."

Rose smiled. "Is that why you're so protective of Sam? He can't take care of himself, like Molly?"

"That's different," said Dean. "You don't know half of what that kid's been doing."

"What has he been doing?"

"You don't want to know."

"Maybe I do." Rose paused. "Maybe I can help him. Talk to him."

He let out a sharp laugh. "If that'd help, I'd have talked him the crap out of this long ago."

"I'm particularly good at cracking stubborn people," Rose offered.

"Yeah," said Dean, "But you know… it's not just something I can go around talking about. It's…" he paused. What could he say to her, that Sam had demon blood in him? Demonic powers? He didn't discuss Sam's abilities with anyone except for Bobby and Castiel — and it wasn't as though he completely trusted the angel either. He just had no choice. But Rose? He had barely known her four days. He didn't want to talk to her about Sam.

Rose kept silent, watching Dean as he fought with his thoughts. When he didn't talk for a while, she decided to continue the conversation. "It's okay, if you don't want to tell me about it. I understand. I get that you're not the talking kind, either. I just wanted to know if I could help somehow."

Dean looked at her, and bit his cheek. Was it possible that she could help, after all? He had tried his best to convince Sam to stay away from Ruby — to stop using those powers; Maybe Rose could get him to do it. Talk him out of it? She was a shrink, and she did seem to have the capacity to make all kinds of people talk. Hell, he was thinking of telling her about the Sam issue right now, and that was a big enough achievement on her part. Plus, he couldn't shake off the feeling that she was one of the most trustworthy people he'd ever come across. So why not try?

Shaking out of his thoughts, Dean pressed his lips together and nodded. "Okay," he said. "I'll tell you. But the deal stands. I'll tell you my story if you tell me yours. And you can't tell your cousins or your ex about Sam."

"Done," said Rose, "And your secret will be safe with me." Dean watched in amazement as she waved her wand and conjured a comfortable-looking armchair, and a couch out of thin air. She sat on the armchair and gestured to the couch. "Your session begins now, Dean," she said jovially, "and I won't even charge you."

"Lucky me," he muttered, before going over and sitting on the couch.

**~o~**

Sam returned to his room with breakfast, only to find Rose and Dean deep in conversation, which broke hastily as soon as he entered. Rose excused herself, vanishing the extra furniture behind her.

Sam was bewildered as he watched her walk away. "Did you just have a… _session_ with her?"

"You can call it that," said Dean. "God knows, I need it too." Sam was bewildered at what he'd said, and noticed that for some reason, Dean looked guilty about it. However, he seemed to shake it off as he walked over to Sam. "Happy birthday, brother."

They hugged briefly and awkwardly, and Dean patted Sam on his shoulder before heading to the tiny fridge. He pulled out a small box and opened it, to reveal a triangle of delicious-looking chocolate cake.

"We went to a nice place yesterday," Dean explained, reaching for his jacket, and pulling out a small candle. He opened up the box properly and placed the candle on the cake. "I thought you'd like something better than a muffin this time, especially as your last two birthdays… haven't been the best."

Sam was silent as Dean lit the candle. How could he forget the last two years? Horrifying images ran through his mind. Memories. Dean cold and bloodied, his eyes staring, as Sam clutched on to him, hoping, wishing, praying for him to come back. And then the year before that. The brief triumph of Azazel's defeat. Then the crushing grief. They were in his head, crystal clear, as though it were just yesterday…

"Sammy?"

Dean's voice brought him back to reality. The candle was lit, and Dean was standing by the cake. "Make a wish," he said, smiling. Then he hesitated. "I'd have called Rose and the others, but something tells me you don't want them to know."

And once again, Sam couldn't believe that his brother was standing there — flesh, blood and bones, back, incredibly, from Hell. He should have been used to the idea, but the grief and pain he'd been experiencing for the months before Dean came back were overriding everything else. And yet, Dean was here. Alive and well.

Without thinking, Sam walked over to his brother and pulled him into another hug, his chin on Dean's shoulder. The other man seemed surprised at the gesture at first, but then a hand rested on Sam's back.

Dean smiled weakly as they pulled away. "It's just a cake, dude."

"Easy for you to say," said Sam, clenching his jaw. "I was the one who kept getting kicked in the nuts each year on this very day for the last two years. And you're right," he continued, "I don't want the others to know. God knows, I'd like a quiet one this time. "

"Well," said Dean. "I'm back to take away your crown. All that matters, innit?"

"Yeah," said Sam, bending over the candle and blowing the little flame away. "It's all that matters," he repeated, before closing his eyes and wishing that Dean would let go of his burden, and let him, Sam, help for once.


	11. Toxic

**A/N: **Hey guys!

This is my final pre-written chapter. I'm afraid, now I'll have to post as I write. Anyway, I'm putting this on a hiatus — for a month, probably — maybe even more, depending on my workload. Rest assured, though, that I'm not abandoning it. I will be back.

I will, however, be updating my other fic, Stand Still and Breathe (it's post s8 finale AU, and it's about one of the non-supernatural diseases that Sam could be suffering from) , and maybe there will be another new fic that I'm co-authoring. Though I won't be writing much, my author page won't be quiet, I can tell you that. There will be occasional one-shots I will re-post from my MNFF account, apart from SSaB. :)

* * *

**10. Toxic**

"Merlin, look at the time!"

Sam had been writing down names on his paper, now held up by a writing pad, Molly beside him, as she worked on her numbers. Soon after Sam had enjoyed his chocolate cake with Dean for company, Molly had come knocking at Sam's door and asked him to join her for one of their 'nerd dates'. He was in the middle of filling up his second page, when she had spoken suddenly.

He checked his watch. It was almost lunchtime. He turned to her. "Hungry?"

"Very."

She put aside her notes, stood up, and stretched. "Gosh, I miss home so much right now."

"What would you do at home on this day?"

"Well, for starters, it's an extra special day in our family because apart from being Victory Day, it's my cousin, Victoire's birthday too."

"Hence the name," Sam concluded.

She nodded. "Hence the name. Her mum's French. Anyway, Dad would have a lot of people from work coming home to greet him, and then we'd all go to my grandparents' place. It's this really nice, disproportionate house outside of this village called Ottery St Catchpole, and it's a lot of fun there. Lucy — my sister, and I would meet with all our cousins."

"How many cousins do you have?"

Molly smiled. "Many. You won't even remember all their names if I told you. But… there's Vic, Dom and Louis, Roxy, Fred, Rose, Hugo, and then Al, James and Lily. Those are my paternal cousins. And there's Teddy, who's not a cousin, but technically a part of the family. He's married to Vic. On the maternal side, I have three other cousins."

"Wow," said Sam. "Your dad have many siblings?"

"Yeah, six," replied Molly. "Uncle Bill, Uncle Charlie, Uncle Fred, Uncle George, Uncle Ron and Aunt Ginny. Uncle Charlie chose not to get married, and he has no kids either. And Uncle Fred…" her face fell. "He died in the war. On this day too."

"I'm sorry." This particular day seemed to come with its bad luck, Sam thought.

"Thanks," she said. She looked away for a moment, and then recovered. "Well, Grandma Molly would cook us all delicious food of Vic's choosing. And since Uncle Harry likes treacle tart, the dessert would always consist of that." She paused. "When I was at Hogwarts, there was a delicious feast every year, and then we'd have a few moments of silence for everyone who lost their lives in the war. It's a bittersweet day, really."

Sam didn't know what to say to that. It wasn't bittersweet for him — mostly just bitter. But he changed the topic. "You're named after your grandma?"

"Yeah," she replied. "She's amazing."

"Glad to hear that your family is so closely knit," Sam said, wondering about the kind of life that Molly had just been plucked out of. It sounded so wonderful. So… normal.

They had lunch with the others and the rest of the day passed relatively quicker. Later that evening, Sam was back with Molly and the notes. Dean and Rose were in the other room, talking about something, and Albus and Scorpius were doing their share of the file work in their room. There was silence, except for the scratching of Molly's quill. And then Sam heard it.

Beside him, Molly let out a gasp. "Was that a firecracker?"

He shrugged his shoulders, and she got up from her place, rushing to the window and pulling apart the curtains. She gasped again when she looked outside. "This is beautiful!"

Sam tilted his head to see a few colourful lights in the sky. He couldn't make out much but in a heartbeat, Molly was beside him, grabbing his wrist and making him get up and watch the fireworks with her. She dragged him to the window. "Look!"

Sam turned in her direction to see a thousand tiny lights in the sky, red, blue, yellow, green… and every colour possible. They were arranging themselves in a pattern, swimming in the sky beautifully. And finally…

"That's Uncle Harry," gasped Molly. "Oh Merlin, that's Uncle Harry!"

Sam looked at the face — Harry Potter looked incredibly like Albus, except, he had glasses, and a lightning bolt shaped scar on the centre of his forehead. He now understood how Albus had been able to fool the Ministry people into thinking he was his father.

"Al has got to see this. And Rose—" Molly rushed out of the room and Sam could hear her thumping at the other room doors. "Rosie? Al?"

Soon, she was running back across the corridor, Albus, Scorpius and Rose with her, along with a confused Dean. She came back into the room and grabbed Sam's wrist again. "We're going downstairs to watch the fireworks. Come on!"

He obliged as she led him downstairs along with the others, and they stood in a line when they got there, heads turned towards the sky as the lovely lights arranged themselves in different patterns one after the other. Sam turned to Dean, only to see his brother look back at him, the same memory surfacing in both their heads.

**000**

**_2_****_nd_****_ May, 1998_**

_"Dean! Dean, you've gotta wake up!"_

_At fifteen years, Sam was sure he sounded a lot like an excited child, but his brother just grumbled as he tossed in his bed. "Lemme sleep, Sam."_

_"No, you've gotta see this!"_

_Dean opened an eye and turned to the clock on their nightstand. "Jeez, it's the crack of dawn. What is it?"_

_"Here," said Sam, going to the window and gesturing to the sky. Dean walked up to him, and looked up. _

_"Fireworks," he said, as they went up one-by-one, not very visible in the slowly lightening sky, but beautiful all the same. Without another word, Dean turned back and grabbed one of the rickety chairs, seating himself by the window._

_Sam was slightly flabbergasted at this, but he took the other chair and joined his brother. They watched in silence, witnessing sunrise as it eventually came, but just remaining quiet. Finally, it was too light for any more of the fireworks to be visible, but they could still hear them bursting in the distance._

_Dean finally turned to his brother. "Happy birthday, Sammy."_

_The firecrackers were there most years on Sam's birthday after that, and they always wondered about the reason for them, but they never really had time to observe them again._

**000**

"You do realise that the firecrackers are in the sky, right?" Molly said suddenly, bringing Sam back to reality. He turned away, and felt Dean do the same.

"So … these firecrackers—" Dean began, but was interrupted by another beautiful one, and his mind was diverted.

"Victory Day," Molly replied to him and he looked back at her.

"You mean—"

"The day that Uncle Harry won, yes."

He smiled at her. "It's beautiful."

"I know."

And Sam felt her fingers let go of his wrist as she moved towards his brother and entwined fingers with his. The six of them sat down on the kerb to continue looking at the fireworks, each with a different thought in his or her mind. Eventually, Rose had to leave because she couldn't sit like that for long. Scorpius and Albus left after her. And even as Sam got up from his place, his legs a little stiff from sitting, he looked down to see the only two people remaining seated before him — Dean and Molly. Quietly, he walked away to his room without disturbing them, a bittersweet sensation brewing in his stomach that he couldn't quite place.

**~o~**

Scorpius woke up from his slumber at the sound of commotion. There was definite talking, and the shutting of cupboard doors. And it seemed to be coming from the next room. Scorpius sat up on his bed. What was happening?

Potter was still asleep — he never heard a thing, anyway, but Scorpius knew something was wrong, and sure enough, as he opened the door, he saw Dean exit his room.

"I'm telling you, Sam," Dean was saying, as he swung his duffel over his shoulders, "something's wrong."

"But what did he say?"

"I told you."

"Nothing else?"

"No, Sam, nothing else. Now come on!"

Scorpius stepped out of his room and Dean caught sight of him while Sam followed him out, shutting the door behind him. "Going somewhere?" the wizard asked them.

"Cas—" Dean began. "Look, it's important. I'll contact you, okay? Sorry about—"

"I want to come with," Scorpius replied, before Dean could finish apologising.

"What? No!"

"I can help. We can all help."

"No," Dean insisted. "Stay out of this. And don't wake Juno up," he said before Scorpius could open his mouth. "We'll deal with this. And if we need help, we'll let you know, get it? You continue working on your case. When you finish making the list, go to the hospital and deal with the ghost — like we taught you. And when you know who it is, salt and burn the body. We should be back in about a week to help again, in any case."

Scorpius licked his bottom lip. "Fine. But you'll tell us if _you_ need help?"

"Yes," replied Dean. "Now go back to sleep."

The other nodded. "Okay. Good luck."

"Thanks."

Scorpius watched the Winchesters leave, wondering if he'd ever see them again. He couldn't shake off the feeling, however, that something was about to go wrong.

**~o~**

"So they just… left?" Rose asked Scorpius as they all sat for breakfast together at a diner.

"Yeah."

"Why didn't you—?"

"Dean asked me not to wake you up," Scorpius replied. He smirked. "He calls you _Juno_?"

"Yeah, apparently, it's this movie," replied Rose. "Anyway, that's beside the point. We should help them. It's only fair."

"They don't want our help, Rose," said Scorpius. "And they've been doing this stuff alone for years."

She sighed. "Yeah, but… they shouldn't be alone right now."

Scorpius raised an eyebrow at her. "You know something that we don't?"

"No," Rose lied smoothly. He frowned for a moment, but believed her.

"You know," Scorpius said, "these lists look like they're going to take a while to make. And even after we sort out Hugo's problem, we have no idea how long we're going to be stuck in 2009."

"Your point?"

He hesitated. "I think… we should stop staying in a hotel."

Molly, who had been silent until now, spoke up. "You know, I was thinking about that too. We should look for a place. And find work."

"Well yeah, we will have to work," said Scorpius, "But I think I have the living situation sorted."

"What is it?"

He turned to Rose. "Did I ever tell you about our home in America?"

She raised her eyebrows. "You have a house here?"

"And many other places," replied Scorpius. "They're not like the Manor, but they're good enough."

"Where is it?"

"California," replied Scorpius. "Near Palm Springs. We can stay there for now, and get back to sort out the ghost when we have enough information. Potter can make you a Portkey, and the rest of us can Apparate." It looked like he had given up on trying to keep Rose away from helping with the case, and she was thankful to that.

"And you have the keys?" she asked him.

"We all have a bunch," he replied. "To the Manor and everywhere else."

She pressed her lips together. "What if your family—?"

"I came here for the first time when I was seven," said Scorpius, "I don't think we were here in 2009."

"Your parents…?"

"They never went on holidays without me," said Scorpius. "Grandpa used to freak the shite out of me, and I refused to stay alone with him and Grandma. So they hired nannies and took me along."

"Well, thank Merlin for that."

"When should we go then?"

Rose waited for everyone to finish. They paid up and left the diner. She looked at Scorpius once they were outside. "Let's give this a week. We can move out after that."

**~o~**

They hadn't spoken at all. Not since Castiel had left, saying that he didn't serve Dean, or even humanity.

Dean gripped the steering wheel of the Impala tight, listening to the rain spatter against his windshield as the wipers worked against the wetness. He couldn't believe what he had seen his brother do an hour ago. So — this was the ultimate secret that Sam had kept from him. That he _sucked blood_.

Great. This was just great. This was why Sam had seemed a little off-colour these last few days. This was how he had killed Alastair. Demon blood. And he was _addicted_ to it.

Dean felt sick. How could Sam even choose this path? Did he honestly have no idea what this meant? Or had he chosen to ignore that? Why? After having hunted for so long, Dean had thought that the kid knew enough not to venture into such things. That he wasn't so stupid — so _naïve_—

"Aren't you going to say anything?" Sam asked from the passenger seat.

Dean ignored the question, and then saw a gas station up ahead. Good. He needed to make a call or two anyway. And he didn't want Sam to listen to either conversation. Slowing down before the gas station, he pulled over and got out of the car. "Have it filled up," he told Sam, going to the passenger side and bending over to the window so he could talk to his brother. "I need to take a leak."

He made his way to the dingy restroom and latched the door behind him, his back pressing against it as he closed his eyes and took a deep breath. He couldn't handle this anymore. He really couldn't do it. God, he'd kill Ruby the next time he met her. He always knew something was off about her, but he was sure now. She was the bitch that needed to go. Opening his eyes, he extracted his cell phone from his pocket and dialled Bobby's number. The older man picked up on the second ring.

"Hello?"

"Hello, Bobby?" Dean could hardly keep his voice from shaking as he spoke.

There was a moment of silence. "What's wrong, boy?" the other man asked.

"It's Sam."

**~o~**

Rose was preparing to lie down for her afternoon nap, her legs resting on a pillow, when her mobile began to ring on the nightstand. She turned around and looked at the display. It was Dean. It was four days since he and Sam had left suddenly but Rose suspected she knew what the call was going to be about. She answered it.

"Dean?"

"Yeah," he replied. "It's me."

She sat up straight at his voice. She didn't like what she heard in it. Resignation. Anger. Sadness. Disappointment. What had gone so wrong in the last few days?

"What's wrong?" she asked Dean, voicing her thoughts.

"I—" He hesitated. "I have a favour to ask of you."

"Of course, of course," she said, her feet touching the floor. "What do you want me to do?"

"It's… it's Sammy."

Of course it was. Dean would never ask for help for himself. "What happened to him?" Rose asked. "Is he okay? Where were you and where _are_ you?"

"He's not okay…" Dean sighed. "We were in Pontiac, Illinois three days ago. There was something we had to sort out. But we're at a friend's house right now. I need you to meet us at his place. It's in Sioux Falls, South Dakota." He narrated an address, and Rose noted it down.

"I know it's too much to ask…" he began, but Rose interrupted him.

"Nothing is too much, Dean. I'll be right there. Can I get the others?"

"Yeah, you can get them," he said. "But don't tell them."

"I won't. See you there."

Rose got off her bed, just as Molly came out of the bathroom. "Something wrong?" she asked, when she saw the urgency on Rose's face.

"Yeah," Rose replied. "They need our help. The Winchesters." She dressed herself at top speed and started to leave the room. "I'll get us checked out," she told Molly, as she reached the door. "Ask Al and Scorpius to get dressed, and tell Al to keep my Portkey ready. The address is in that notepad on the nightstand. Meet me downstairs in five."

Molly nodded and began to dress herself without another question. Rose, in the meantime, made her way to the reception. "We're checking out," she told the man at the desk, the moment she reached there.

"Which rooms?"

"Two nought nine and two ten," she replied, rummaging through her purse for the money as he started to make the bill. When he had given it to her, she signed it and handed him the money, just as Scorpius came down to the lobby, accompanied by Albus and Molly. She took the keys from Scorpius and handed them over. "Thanks."

There was something odd in the way that the man looked at her. And suddenly, she felt a pair of strong arms grip her from the back, and she was pressed hard against someone.

"No one is going anywhere tonight," said the receptionist, and Rose was turned to face Scorpius, Albus and Molly, only to see them held captive by three other large men, all their eyes completely black. There was the prickle of a needle in her cubital fossa, and then darkness.

**~o~**

Dean dialled Rose's number for the umpteenth time, only to get her voicemail again. "Dammit," he whispered, cancelling the call and turning to his glass of whiskey as he sat at Bobby's desk. It had been a few hours since he'd called her first, and she hadn't answered the call ever since. Where were they?

"Who you callin' anyway?" Bobby asked finally, having kept his mouth shut the last few times.

"Just this friend…" Dean didn't have the strength to explain. He wished Rose would make it quick. Sam had been locked up in the panic room for the last couple of days, and Dean and Bobby had no idea what the detox would do to him. After a lot of contemplation, Dean had decided to let Rose in on this secret too. He knew it was probably wrong to trust her completely, but there seemed no other way. Plus he hoped that Rose would know a cure from her world to get it out of Sam's system. If not that, he at least needed her to talk to Sam.

The demon blood was the limit, and someone needed to tell Sam that he was truly crossing all limits of wrong. And Dean knew that if he tried, Sam wouldn't listen. The more he coaxed Sam not to keep secrets from him, the larger and darker those secrets got. Sam seemed to be so hell-bent on proving Dean wrong. The same went for Bobby. Sam would just assume they were seeing black and white, and not the grey in between. So maybe a third person, like Rose, could help him this time. Maybe. It was his last hope.

Bobby was still frowning. "Hunter friend?"

"Yeah, you can say that."

"And ya think this… person can help…?"

Dean licked his lower lip. "I don't know," he said, looking into the older hunter's eyes. "But I've got no other way, Bobby. She might know a cure to the addiction, and she's a shrink, so she can maybe talk to Sam better than you or me—"

"So you called a stranger to help Sam? It's not that desperate, Dean. The boy is stubborn, but we can still try."

"She's not a stranger," said Dean. "She…" he sighed, "I think she can really do it. Sam and I were working a case with her before… it's a long story."

"And I ain't going nowhere," Bobby insisted. "Now tell me who this wonder girl of yours is."

**~o~**

Rose woke up to her phone vibrating in her pocket. The first sensation she had after that was a pair of cuffs cutting into the flesh of her wrists. She was on a bed — it felt soft underneath her. Her arms ached from being held up and tied to a bedpost. She could feel a thin trickle of blood from her wrist to her elbow and she tried not grimace. And then, there were the kicks from inside her belly. Her child had always been relatively quiet, but now, the baby was moving continuously; as if it knew that its mother was in danger. The crook of her elbow stung. That was when she remembered the needle. She gasped.

"Rose? Rose?" Her eyes were heavy. They refused to open. But she could recognise Scorpius's voice, and she knew she had to respond… She had to respond…

"Rose! Please wake up!"

"Zcorp…" she began, slurring on her words.

"I'm right here. Open your eyes."

She took a deep breath and opened her heavy lids to a spinning world. She realised she was in one of the hotel rooms. Her head hurt and she turned to the side to see Scorpius on the bed next to hers, tied up just like her. However, she couldn't bear to keep her eyes open. "Dizzy…" she whispered, shutting them again.

"I know, I know," he said. "But you have to fight it, okay? And I'll get you better soon. Just don't give in, you get me?"

"Mmm hmm," she whispered, doing as he said. He looked very worried. She licked her dry lips. "What… what did zey inject…?" She wasn't allowed to take Muggle sedatives, and this certainly couldn't be good. Worry filled her mind for the baby that was currently kicking at her belly, still aware that its mother was not safe.

"I don't know…" Scorpius admitted. He sounded close to tears. Rose knew he was thinking the same thing as she was.

"Don't… don't worry… m'okay" she said. "Baby here is… very strong…"

"Rose, we've been here a while," Scorpius said to her, his voice thick. "They've been injecting you with that… stuff… every t-ten minutes. It's a truth serum, I think, but you've been fighting it."

And the 'truth serum' caused sedation? This was bad. "How… many… hours?"

He hesitated. "About five hours."

Oh God, what had they put inside her? The baby was kicking incessantly. Rose tried to clear her mind. Which Muggle sedatives worked almost immediately when injected intravenously?

"Where… Al? 'Olly?"

"Next room. They put me with you over here. But they've only sedated you."

"Why're they… why… me?" Rose breathed, nausea rising in her.

"Because we thought that was the only way to get these friends of yours to talk," said a voice, and Rose turned her head to see one of the men from earlier standing at the doorway. He smirked, his eyes turning black again. "They don't seem to care about you."

"We don't know where the Winchesters are!" Scorpius insisted as the man came to Rose with a loaded syringe. "Stop it! Can't you see she's pregnant?" Scorpius said again, and Rose could hear his voice break. "Please," he whispered.

"It's funny how much you lie," the monster replied, grasping Rose's arm and straightening it.

"Wait… wait…" gasped Rose before she could feel the needle piercing her skin. "They… don't know… please…"

"Oh, really?"

"Yes…" Rose was finding it more and more difficult to speak, or concentrate. Her head hurt. She was very tired.

The man bent over, so his face was inches above Rose's. "Tell me."

"Pontiac…"

"Illinois?"

"Yes." Rose wanted to sleep. That was all.

"Don't lie."

The baby kicked again. Sam and Dean weren't in Pontiac. But Rose wouldn't give them away. She wouldn't. Gryffindors didn't do that. "Not… lying…" she gasped.

"Okay, we'll check." There was another prick in the crook of her elbow, and another cry from Scorpius as the world went black again.

**~o~**

"A time travellin' witch? Dammit, Dean, I didn't think you were _that_ stupid!"

"Yeah, well, she's not one of those demonic witches, okay?" Dean said to Bobby. "And Cas said she's trustworthy."

"Since when did you start takin' Cas seriously?"

"Well, she's not hurt us. Neither have her friends. They could have killed us five days ago if they wanted to."

Bobby sighed. "And she said she'd be here."

"Yes. I don't know what went wrong, though."

"You said there were others with her? Try one of their numbers," said Bobby.

"I already did. They're not answering."

"Well, then, I hate to break it to you, but looks like they've ditched you," Bobby shrugged.

"They wouldn't do that," said Dean, holding on to the last straw, and flinching as he heard Sam's agony from the panic room. "One of the kids wove back Sam's wounds in a minute, Bobby. I'm telling you, they will know a cure." They had to. Sam had to get out of this.

"Okay, then, try again. I'll get us some grub," Bobby said quietly, before retreating to the kitchen.

Dean picked up his phone and dialled Molly's number again. Maybe she'd answer this time. Maybe Rose was having some pregnancy-related discomfort, and she was napping…

Molly didn't pick up her phone. He tried Scorpius. And Albus. Again and again. He dialled Rose again, and waited for it to go to voicemail.

"Hey," he said after the beep, "I don't know what's going on, but I need you to come here. Sammy isn't doing well, Juno. He needs help…" Dean stopped there, short of begging her to come, and licked his lips. He stared at his phone for a long time, hoping against hope that Rose would listen to the message, and make it to Bobby's house. There was nothing remaining, but frank hope. And that just seemed too weak.

Had they really bailed on him? Dean felt a sting of sadness at the thought; he'd known those people for four days, and he knew he shouldn't feel this way, but something along the lines of desperation was pushing him over the edge.

His hands trembled as he raised the whiskey glass to his mouth, trying to quell the nausea rising inside him. Right now, he had no idea if Sam would survive the detox. As if on cue, Sam screamed again, pleading to someone; an invisible force — possibly a hallucination, but hallucinations didn't cause physical pain, and Dean knew that whether Sam was seeing things or not, the agony was real. And his throat constricted at that. The brother he'd been protecting all his life was in frank pain; and a possible life-threatening situation, and Dean had caused it.

Dean sat for a while, considering what Bobby had said the previous day about the Seals. So, what now? Use Bobby's suggestion, get the kid out and let him fight Lilith? Or was detoxing Sam the right way to go? In his dilemma, Dean's mind fell upon the last solution — the final ray of hope.

He told Bobby he needed fresh air, and headed out to the salvage yard, stopping by some wrecked cars. And incredibly, Dean found himself looking skywards and shutting his eyes. This seemed to be happening a lot lately, but he couldn't think of anything else that he could do. He needed that last ray of hope right now. No matter how douche-y it was. He needed someone to give him the correct opinion.

"Cas," he whispered to the setting sun, hoping the angel would listen to his call again.

**~o~**

Sam felt sick to his stomach. He hugged himself as he sat on the floor of the panic room, his breath coming in short gasps while he rocked back and forth. He was going to die. He knew it.

The pain was terrible. It was like someone was cutting through his gut — like sleeping on a bed of nails… like a migraine intensified a thousand times. It was _torture_, not pain. And then the agony in his mind… in his heart. His mother had spoken to him; convinced that he was going on the right track. Then why wouldn't Dean understand? Did Dean really want all that torture for Sam? Did he, Sam, have to pay such a price for taking Ruby's path? Was this his punishment for keeping secrets from Dean?

Sam wiped off the sweat from his forehead, feeling the skin burn underneath his too-hot palm. His eyes burned with fever and were watering — but that wasn't just from the temperature.

He wished Dean would understand. All his life, Sam had trusted Dean's instincts; always looked up to him. Dean had always been the larger entity; the strong one. But this time — just this once, he wasn't all that strong, and he knew it. He knew it as well as Sam did.

Sam had always trusted Dean beyond anyone else. Couldn't Dean reciprocate that, and hand the reins to Sam for once?

That was when Sam saw them — the black lines, spreading through his palms. Branching out, vein-like, taking burning, agonising pain with them. He stumbled to his feet and rushed to the mirror. He was dying. There was no doubt about it.

**~o~**

Sam was having a seizure. Dean had given Bobby his consent to bind Sam to the bed, and together, they turned Sam to his side as he continued to seize. Bobby then went to look for cloth and handcuffs, while Dean bent over his brother, holding him down at the shoulder and knee, trying to keep him from falling off the bed.

He had stopped calling Rose and the others. He doubted they were coming anyway. So much for insisting upon helping with Lilith, he thought. They probably got intimidated.

Sam's body finally let out a last flail and the seizure mercifully stopped. Dean let the younger man lie on his back again, noticing the tear tracks from his eyes and the flush of his skin. Sam wasn't doing well. Again, Dean wondered if he was about to lose his little brother to a wrongly taken step. The thought was unbearable.

Bobby came back and they bound Sam to the bed as gently as they could, adjusting the cloth between his wrists and the cuffs so as to avoid injury. They readjusted Sam's pillow, and made to exit the room, when the doorbell rang.

Bobby and Dean gave each other a glance before pulling out their guns and heading upstairs. The doorbell rang again. And again. Someone was really desperate to get in.

When they got there, Bobby looked through the peephole. He raised his eyebrows and turned to Dean. "Your friends consist of two redheads, a blond and a black haired kid?"

"Yeah," Dean replied, not believing that they were here. "You can let them in." He grabbed a flask of holy water from Bobby's desk for good measure.

Bobby nodded at him and opened the door, and Dean opened the flask, waiting to splash them with holy water, when Scorpius rushed in, with Rose in his arms.

"Please," he said. "We need your help. She's been poisoned."

* * *

**A/N:** So guys, maybe some words from you this time? Please?


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